


This Is A Happy Ending

by quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: BDSM, F/F, F/M, M/M, Problematic Consent, Problematic Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:04:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 127,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Herc Hansen is thirty-five years old, he sells himself, body and soul. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unless you are into dark slowburn mindfuck kink with a really, really problematic idea of consent, this is not for you. Additionally, if you want to read fic where Stacker Pentecost acts 100% ethically by the standards of any universe, rather than meeting roughly 150% by the standards of the absolutely awful one that he lives in, this is not the fic for you. Title notwithstanding, this is not a cute or happy fic. 
> 
> Basically, this is 50 Shades of Awful Hot Dad, Futuristic Dystopia Corporate Sexy Bad Touch Edition, with the add-on module where the person writing not only realizes that everything is wrong and awful and hideously abusive, but is into writing about it for exactly those reasons. 
> 
> If that grosses you out, you should stop here. 
> 
> In particular, I recognize it's totally fucked up across, like, multiple dimensions of time and space to have a black person essentially own another human being. And that is not the only race-related creepfield this fic involves, either. I have tried to avoid doing certain kinds of actively gross things, but am aware that writing this genre of fic, even if it's a sci-fi futuristic dystopia, is more than a little inherently gross. Also, I am not black, and I am not even close to good enough at writing/thinking/being human to adequately explore, in any way whatsoever, even in a very limited context, issues of race and slavery. This fic kinda sorta talks about some of it, but does not come close to doing it properly. 
> 
> If you are uncomfortable with any of the above, you should probably stop reading.
> 
> For people going on, all the interesting ideas in this came from [analogized](http://analogized.tumblr.com). This fic was conceived in the fandom Drift while it was 2 a.m. for one or the other of us.

In some universes, Stacker dies in a Jaeger with Herc's son. They are at the bottom of the ocean, and Chuck and Stacker flip the detonation devices in sequence because the bomb release is jammed. Stacker's last words are spoken to Mako; the last words he hears are in the Drift with Herc's son. 

...

In a universe close to this one, Herc and Stacker meet in a Security Forces bar hazy with smoke and the evaporative trail of cheap synthetic alcohol. Herc isn't married anymore, and when Stacker offers to buy him a drink, Herc looks over and sees broad shoulders, big hands, friendly smile, so he takes Stacker up on it. After that, it's fifteen minutes until they're messing around in an alleyway with each other and forty-five until they're fucking in a cheap motel room around the block. Herc thinks that the games Pentecost wants to play are silly, but somehow, at the same time, they're hot. Fun, so Herc stays on his knees, keeps going, doesn't safe word out. 

0415 on Monday, he wakes up to the sound of a shower running. Herc joins Pentecost in the bathroom for one last fuck, and before the water is fully dry off their skins, they go their separate ways, Stacker holding a grip bag with gear and Herc with nothing in his hands, but walking with his head up, whistling and looking forward to his breakfast. 

...

In this universe, when Herc Hansen is thirty-five years old, he sells himself, body and soul. 

The ending is happy. What else do you want to know?


	2. Chapter 2

Herc expects to be picked up for a short to medium term security contract. It's his background. It's his skill set. Tendo gives him the card and number of a recruiter he knows; the woman tells Herc that she mostly handles tech placements, but will give him a shot: after all, Tendo's friends have made her a lot of money over the years, and Herc signs the release forms for the agency to pull his Security Forces record. At his psych eval, they ask Herc the questions that he expects about why he got bounced two short of his twenty-year mark. Was it theft? No. Was it dishonesty? No. Was it fitness failure? No. It says in the record what it was. 

_Assault on a fellow Security Forces officer._

The questioner doesn't look up from his list of questions; the monitoring tech doesn't look up from the terminal, just flags the spike of anger that shows on his screen. 

At his physical eval, they focus on making sure Herc has a full range of movement and good physical strength. His genetic profile didn't come back with degenerative diseases, so he has a good twenty years to sell. A couple months away from the Forces have softened the outline of the muscles, but he still fits in with the seventeen other men and women in his batch field eval -- tough, strong, almost all of them with Security Forces tattoos visible around their training tops. 

Herc does better than most, not as good as some. There is a woman up front with dark hair braided tight; on her left shoulder, she has the seven stars and arrow sheaf tattoo for an elite Security Forces unit. Unsurprisingly, she takes top marks in handgun use and knife-throwing; she flips her unarmed combat sparring partner on his back in a half-dozen easy, lazy moves that show off just how quickly she could have done it if a client wanted her to. When she looks into the camera before each event and says her name and Agency number, she does it in the broad accent of the Slums with a few of the edges polished off. Is this her second time through the system? 

After the timed wind sprints, but before the agility course, a man raises his hand and asks when they learn more about the loyalty cues that they'll get if they go under contract. The lead agency staff person rolls his eyes and says, have patience, kid, don't shoot it in your pants. Everyone laughs, and the briefing turns out to be a fifteen minute video. On the way out, staffers hand out brochures: Herc notices that stars-and-arrows doesn't even look at hers, just drops it into a waste bin with a bored look on her face. 

Herc reads his, though. On the air shuttle back from the eval site, he goes through it, carefully, word by word. He gets comfortable with the idea of triggers and controls, reads through the medical notice extra carefully. He notices that few of the words in the brochure have more than three syllables. Almost none of the sentences are more than ten words. 

It's written for people who finished school at sixteen and haven't read much since. 

...

In his shitty flophouse room, Herc reads the brochure two more times. 

Depending on the level of programming the client wants, conditioning can take anywhere from an afternoon to several weeks. The details of what happen vary by client and job. Sometimes, it's done in-house at the agency. Other times, the client takes over. It can involve drugs. It can involve audio and visual cues, as well as sensory deprivation. Implanted triggers may be required. Side effects depend on the programming. The most common ones are headaches, memory loss, dry mouth, and uncontrolled muscle spasms. Some contractors are unable to use trigger words in conversation even after deprogramming. 

Herc thinks about going to a bar and getting a drink, but doesn't.

Selling the Tower apartment that Angela inherited from her parents paid for the entrance fee for the Academy and Chuck's first semester. Herc borrowed against an old life insurance policy to buy Chuck's uniforms and books and school tablet and train ticket out: Herc saw Chuck off at the train station, but hasn't been to the Academy since he toured it with Angela all those years ago, back when they signed Chuck up. 

Chuck is twelve. Herc has ten weeks, four days to figure out how he'll make tuition for next semester, and he signs up with the agency in at the end of week two, after his third potential job in a row disappears once they see his dishonorable discharge. 

...

Three days after his field eval, Herc gets a message from the agency, asking if he'll come in for another physical and to complete some additional paperwork. Preliminary, nothing certain, but Herc frowns at the message, sends back a query about whether something got messed up in his files. Did they miss something on the required checklist? The response is that he'll be paid for his time. Twenty-five dollars an hour, plus travel time and expenses? Herc goes for a walk around the block to clear his head and settle his stomach and stand outside a bar for a few minutes before he forces himself to keep walking.

By the time he comes back, he finds that the agency has upped the offer to thirty-five dollars an hour, plus they'll send private transport for him. 

Can he come in this afternoon?

...

Later, Herc finds out that it was his psych eval that pinged: Stacker put very general physical and training requirements, but included specific, firm guidance on the numbers he wanted for responsibility. Intelligence. Honesty. Attention to detail. 

_Emotional resilience._

The second physical is a little more detailed than the first.


	3. Chapter 3

For one thing, it's a private room. Blood pressure, vitals. The doctor is there from the start, putting the monitor up to Herc's arm, taking his temperature with a swipe across the forehead with the same wand. He talks the whole time: _only my mother calls me doctor_ , he says, and when he rolls up his sleeves Herc studies the ink. They're big, curving over the forearms and going almost all the way to the elbow and a little beyond. Colorful, too. Color means expense. Custom line work like that means expense. 

"Nice, right?" the doctor says, smiling, gives the cuffs one final fold. 

Herc looks from the tattoos up to the doctor's face. It's soft and unlined. 

No, Herc doesn't think a tattoo of the Yamaroshi firebombing of a civilian air transport during the trading company wars of '18 is _nice_. 

It doesn't seem to bother the doctor. Instead, cheerfully, he works Herc over with gloved hands, turns Herc's head left and right, prods with fingers. Has detailed checklist questions to ask about every scar and mark on Herc's body. He takes two vials of blood, three cheek scrapings, hands Herc the jar, then when Herc is standing there, frowning at it, mentions that Herc is supposed to piss into it. Does Herc remember the tattoo parlor where he got the unit tattoo on his right shoulder blade? The form asks for the name, so that the agency can check to see if they had health violations. 

Herc blinks at the doctor, waits to be pointed to the bathroom. 

...

"Last time, they said to skip this section," Herc says. He is dressed again, sitting a table. There is a woman sitting across from him; he remembers that, before, he filled them out in a room with two dozen other people who looked and moved and were marked up like him, and they were similarly bent over tablets. It was a bit like being back in school. Two people had been given styluses that didn't work with the tablets; one person got almost all the way through the questionnaire and had to go back. They had to go up to the bored-looking twenty-year old doing intake in the front and explain what had happened. 

Herc is sitting alone in a pleasant, neutral-colored room. There are overhead lights and beige-colored furniture. It's meant, he suspects, to be comfortable. Relaxing. 

"We'd like to correct that," she says. "I'll read each question question out loud. You'll also see it on your tablet. You can tell me your response verbally. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can mark it down on the tablet. If you do that, I won't see your answers."

Herc considers her for a moment, and she says, pleasantly, "If you prefer, we can have a man read these questions to you, Mr. Hansen, but for insurance purposes, someone needs to be here, in case you have any questions about what any of the words or practices mean. Nothing will happen without your full, informed, consent." 

She is, Herc wants to guess, roughly his age. A little younger. Attractive and carefully made up, wearing a blouse and jacket. Skin color like his, neat brown hair. 

Helpful. Friendly, but impersonal. 

At the beginning of the question session, she explained that this was being recorded for insurance purposes. 

...

Here is a story about Herc Hansen: when he is sixteen, he signs up with the Security Forces. When he is twenty-two, he takes Angela Bryer to a fancy restaurant further up on the north side of Sydney Tower than Herc can strictly afford. She is pregnant, and Herc intends to propose to her: whether she wants to keep the baby or not, he is in love. He wants to have a life with her, and he touches the pocket where he keeps the ring at least sixteen times through the first course, the second course, the little bowls of sorbet that get brought out. Distracted, Angela asks Herc how he knew about this place, and he explains that they came up on a Security Forces assignment once. Additional protection for somebody high up in one of the trade clans, and they rode the elevator right past, but he saw the sign and thought she'd like the view. 

Later, Angela tells him that she thought he was taking her out to a fancy dinner high up on a Tower because he was trying to pressure her into get an abortion: instead, he remembered they were talking about getting married before she found out she was pregnant. 

So she says yes. So Herc moves out of barracks. They set up house together, and they get married in time for Chuck to be born on the right side of the blanket. Angela's parents aren't thrilled about their university-educated girl marrying a twenty-three year old Security Forces roughneck from the outer slums, but she tells them, calmly, when Herc is outside, wearing his Security Forces dress uniform with the medals on it, bouncing Chuck up and down the balcony by the restaurant. Chuck had been crying, and Herc distracts him from it by pointing out the make and model and security mods on the air shuttles passing overhead -- head over her shoulder, Angela watches them for a moment, father and child. 

Then, she turns back to her parents. Speaking quietly but clearly, she says that Herc is on the way up the ladder. He loves his job, and he is good at it. Even if those things weren't true, Herc Hansen is her husband and the father of her child, so they'll learn to be polite to him. 

Or they'll lose her and their grandchild to boot. 

"The expression on their bloody faces," she says, smugly, to Herc on public transit back to their smaller Tower at the edge of the City. He blinks, unsettled by the satisfaction in her voice, but passes Chuck to her anyways, so that she can put him up against the window and let him watch the scenery. 

...

Here is a story about Herc Hansen: when he is thirty-three, his wife dies, and when he is thirty-five, because he wants his son to have the advantages that his mother always planned for him, because he doesn't want his son to someday be in this position -- Herc signs papers first with a recruiter, then with the agency. Dishonorable discharge notwithstanding, he has skills to sell. When he follows up after his evals, though, his recruiter says, in essence, _Don't call me. I'll call you._ Apparently, there isn't a lot of market for thirty-five year olds with dishonorable discharges. 

Then, things change: suddenly, the agency wants to talk to him badly. They are willing to pay. They are willing to send private transit for him. Herc is confused through the flight in; he is confused during the medical exam that leaves him feeling like a biological specimen rather than a human being, but when he gets to the questionnaire supplement they want, he takes one look at the questions, and realizes what happened. They're worried because they think it'll scare him off: big, tough, marked up ex-Forces man like him, but he isn't stupid, is he? Herc asks for the name of the client, and the attractive, carefully made-up woman on the other side of the table tells him that it's confidential. Herc asks for the file of the potential client, and they tell him that he is so far down the list that it wouldn't be worth his time. 

Their hesitance to actually say the words out loud, though -- 

A week later, Herc is in a metal-sided room with bright lights above. The floor is metal, too. Herc is on his knees in front of a man who is wearing a suit -- Herc is stripped to the waist. His handler tried to put cover-up on herc's tattoos, but it was rushed. Hurried. A little frantic. They were trying to drill him in the basics of what the man liked -- a man -- a primer on the sort of thing that rich Tower types wanted out of contractors they were hiring for sex work or, rather, that this one apparently liked. _Stay on your knees unless he tells you to get up. Keep your hands behind your back. Don't touch him unless he tells you to. Don't look him in the face._

Herc doesn't have a problem following orders, even if the air in the room is cold and raises goosebumps on his arms and shoulders, and when the man comes in, Herc is surprised. Tall. Heavy with muscle. Not like Herc usually sees in the Towers, except the man is dressed in a suit, which Herc is used to seeing. The man sits down, heavily, on the chair, looking tired, a little irritated, and Herc forgets to look away or keep his eyes down. He has, after all, only been told, not trained. Instead, Herc looks him straight in the face, like he would anyone else: dark skin, neatly trimmed mustache. Maybe Herc's age? 

The man looks at the half-smeared cover up on Herc's shoulder and makes a face that Herc doesn't know how to interpret. 

"What's it say underneath?" he asks. 

Hands still tucked in the small of his back, Herc turns his head to look at it, even though he knows what it says, has known it since his drunken stag party a week before he got married. 

"Angela," he says. 

"Wife?" the man says, and waits for Herc to turn back and look him in the face. 

"She died," Herc says. 

They look at each other for another moment. Then, they talk a little about the other marks on Herc, and the man asks for a description of what Herc did in the Security Forces: he wants to know why Herc was discharged, and Herc says, simply, that he hit a fellow officer and didn't stop when they told him to. Herc doesn't have a shirt on, but is kneeling in tan slacks. 

Underneath, just in case Stacker Pentecost wants to take him for a test drive as part of the interview, Herc isn't wearing underwear. His thighs and ass are slick with lube. 

...

Later, Herc finds out that the agency kept throwing highly trained, career sex contractors at Stacker both because they would make more money that way, and because they didn't take Stacker at his word -- he kept asking them, increasingly irritated, to run the search with the parameters he provided. He didn't care whether or not there was prior training. He was willing to pay the category-shift fee if it came to be an issue. The absence of baseline conditioning was preferable. 

Later, Herc finds out that Stacker had made a specific request for Herc's tattoos and scars not to be covered up or worked over with a dermal regenerator for the interview. Herc was in the third interview room, two before him, two after. After he walked out of Herc's room, Stacker didn't bother to go to the last two. Instead, he pulled his handler aside and said that he'd seen all that he needed to see. When would the paperwork be ready?

Later -- 

Later, in order to keep Chuck at the Academy, Herc Hansen doesn't hesitate in signing a contract. What other options does he have? He jumps through all the other hoops necessary to sell himself on a ten-year whole-risk contract to Stacker Pentecost.


	4. Chapter 4

There are Towers; outside the Towers are the Slums. The Security Forces take pride in accepting sixteen year old kids straight out of the worst Slums and making something out of them: sign up, the brochures say, and see the world. Schools in the slums drill, rather than teach, so the promise of the Forces is conveyed more by image and video than the printed word. In the Forces, men and women wear dress uniforms. In the Forces, they fly gunships, help with natural disasters, carry arms and and wear combat suits and look serious and are accorded respect. To join the Forces is to leave chaos and squalor and disease and violence and generational poverty. The Forces is uniforms and discipline, three squares a day, plus health care and vocational training. 

Work hard. Fix your teeth. Get properly married. Make sure the kids don't grow up in the Slums. 

Keep your nose clean. As long as you do your duty, we'll take care of you. 

...

Stacker Pentecost laid out his parameters in simple, direct terms. He wanted someone honest, intelligent, responsible, and detail-oriented with experience doing something besides sex work. Gender immaterial. Sex immaterial. He was flexible on age. To keep them from trying to set him up with eighteen year olds who would offer the greatest chance of a profitable-to-the-Agency renewal after the initial term, Stacker asks for ten years of his own age either way, with a preference for someone within five years of his own age. Physical preferences? A redhead would be strongly preferred, but not mandatory. 

Mandatory: Emotional resilience. Some level of attraction to and experience with having sex with men. 

The handler also added, manually, _Followed up on specialized training; client reaffirms that specialized training or conditioning is not only inadvisable, but actively undesirable._

 _Client will provide all necessary training._

Stacker also puts down, as a non-negotiable physical item, that he wants his contractor to have good knees. 

...

After the chime goes off and Stacker walks out of the metal-sided room, he doesn't bother to going to his last two interviews of the afternoon. Instead, he pulls his handler aside and says that was Hercules Hansen, wasn't it? They were running the interviews blind, but Hansen was one who kept popping up at the top of the search results. That couldn't have been anyone but him. 

Stacker doesn't say the part about _blushing ginger on his knees in front of me with beautiful shoulders and tattoos and scars and a Slums accent so rough you could use it to sand the side of an airshuttle_. 

Instead, he says that he wants to make an offer. How quickly can the paperwork be done? 

...

For as much money as Stacker is proposing to pay: quickly, with only the delays required by law for Herc to consider what he is signing away. 

On the other hand, while he wants all possible haste on their side, Stacker makes clear to the agency that he wants to follow not only every law, but every single conceivable protocol and safeguard and accommodation. He is providing three potential terms, and he wants Hansen to have every opportunity to ask questions and understand what he would be agreeing to. In fact, the agency should actively pursue informed consent: he wants them to show Hansen the sexual workup that Pentecost completed, and when Hansen has had a chance to review it, the agency's representative should make sure that Hansen understands. Does he know what this word means? Is he aware of what this practice involves? Stacker doesn't care if they went through this once before when Hansen was filling it out. He wants them to go over it again and cover the update that Stacker made after meeting him.

Consequently, Herc looks up from the listing and across at the table at the calm, steady face of the agency representative. The roof of his mouth feels dry. 

...

Herc signs on the dotted line. Since it's a contract for more than five years, the system prompts him to add his thumbprint. Since it's a contract for more than eight years, the terminal spits out a facsimile, and Herc follows the instructions and text shown on the screen: he picks up a copy of the contract, flips to the last page, and looks into the camera and affirms that is his signature. He states the date and time, and that he, Hercules Hansen, of his own free will and accord, affirms this contract for services with Stacker Pentecost. He specifically affirms that he read and understood Section 15 regarding bodily harm, Section 19 regarding what happens if Herc walks away from the contract, and Section 22 regarding payment of agency fees.

A long mirror runs along one side of the signing room. 

...

Afterwards, a shuttle takes him back to his flophouse, so that he can pack and wrap up any outstanding matters. During the term of his contract, he'll be allowed commercially reasonable contact with Chuck. 

Herc signed for the maximum of what Stacker Pentecost was offering, which was ten years. For additional money, he declined the option for contractor-initiated termination.


	5. Chapter 5

They start easy. 

Handoff is Stacker giving his thumbprint and signing a few times to acknowledge receipt. Then, the Agency representative gives Stacker a brief working tutorial of the safety collar around Herc's neck before going back to the shuttle, and Herc follows Stacker inside, through the great room, where sofas and chairs are drawn up comfortably around a vid screen and low table. There is more natural light in the house than Herc is used to, but instead of sitting down there, they go over to the dining table on the side. 

It's big. Twelve chairs, long, glossy stretch of expensive-smelling wood, and Stacker pulls a chair out and sits down. Herc isn't sure what to do, but Stacker says, calmly, "On your knees."

Feeling awkward, Herc sets down his duffle bag and kneels next to it. The floor is smooth marble with area rugs over it in places, and Herc isn't sure what to do with his hands, so he tucks them behind him in the position for parade rest. Again: there is more natural light in the house than Herc is used to, a skylight over the great room and long windows that run from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. Herc remembers that he is supposed to keep his eyes down, but Stacker puts two fingers under Herc's chin and tilts his face upwards. The hand is warm and dry; the fingers are wide and surprisingly rough. 

They make eye contact. 

Fingers still under Herc's chin, Stacker explains in a calm voice: he wants Herc to look him in the eye. The first thing they'll going to practice is that when Stacker is in the room, Herc will track him. If Stacker is there, Herc's attention and eyes will always be on Stacker. He wants Herc to make eye contact. Forget everything the agency told him -- from now on, Stacker's rules. Understood? 

Herc nods, two fingers under his chin, and in reaction, Stacker tilts Herc's face up out of its natural position, so that it's a little uncomfortable. 

Second lesson, he says. Herc doesn't get to nod or shake his head anymore. He has to say it out loud.

Herc, without entirely understanding why, goes deeply, deeply red. He can feel it in his cheeks; he feels a prickle of sweat between his shoulderblades. 

"Yes," Herc says, finally. 

Stacker runs his thumb over Herc's cheekbones before taking his hand away. 

Herc is dismissed to his room. 

...

Later, with Herc awkwardly kneeling in front of him in the great room, so that Herc can practice tracking and making eye contact even when Stacker is talking about something that makes Herc embarrassed or uncomfortable. Stacker goes into a little more detail: he expects honesty and hard work. In turn, Herc should know that at times, he was going to be hurt. It was unlikely that Herc was going to find the contract easy, particularly at first, but Stacker had every intention of abiding by his obligations under the contract. He wasn't going to go out of his way to make it difficult for Herc, but Stacker was going to ask for things that Herc might not be comfortable with straight away. Herc would have to get used to it. 

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," Herc says, knowing he sounds a little breathless, knowing that he is pink with shame. 

Stacker doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Stacker settles back into his armchair and goes back to his reading. The exercise is that Herc will kneel, keep his hands behind his back, and keep his eyes on Stacker the whole time. Stacker would prefer it if Herc kept his eyes on Stacker's face, but for variety, unless instructed otherwise, Herc is allowed to look at different parts of Stacker, his hands, his shoulders, his knees. 

But always, always, if Stacker is in the room, his eyes on Stacker. His attention on Stacker. That's a house rule. 

...

House rule: Herc calls Stacker _sir_ when if he is responding to a question or asking Stacker something. If Herc is talking to someone else, he can refer to Stacker by his first name. 

House rule: Herc should feel free to explore the house and grounds. If he gets lost, he can ask to be taken back to his room, and the walls, if he was inside, would show him the way If he was outside on the roof garden, the stone pathway would light up and show him the way. When Herc isn't with Stacker, his time is his own, and he can make use of the gym. If he wants food, there will always be plenty in the refrigerator. Later, when Herc has gotten used to kneeling and tracking, they'll discuss mealtimes where Herc will eat with Stacker. 

In the meantime, Herc follows the lights the first time he hears a chime and a computerized voice informing him that Stacker is on his way home and has requested Herc kneeling and waiting in the foyer. Herc stays fully dressed in front of Stacker -- in fact, one night, when he meets Stacker in the foyer and Stacker has some of the clothes that he wants Herc to wear around the house from now on, Stacker tells him to go back to his room and get dressed. Herc doesn't know what he'll find in the bag: what do sex contractors wear around the house? He had a vague idea from mass market vid series that they mostly went around naked, lubed up, but when he gets back to his room and closes the door, Herc finds the bag has three long-sleeved shirts in it. They're the same style as the kind he brought to the house, but lighter. Softer. Clearly better quality. They're clearly new, but also been washed. 

Herc pulls one on at random, then goes back to Stacker, who is getting himself dinner out of the refrigerator and seems pleased that Herc came back to him after changing: he tells Herc to kneel by the table and watch Stacker while he eats. When Stacker is done, Stacker leaves Herc by the table while he puts his dishes away in the dishwasher; then, Stacker takes Herc to the study. 

"Kneel by the armchair," Stacker says, and Herc does. Stacker takes a file from the desk, then comes back and stands in front of Herc for a moment: Herc has never stood shoulder to shoulder with Stacker, but he'd give Stacker maybe two inches in height on him. Maybe more. It's -- 

"As long as you keep your head against my knee," Stacker says, folder in hand, "You don't have to keep your eyes on me." 

Herc blinks, but when Stacker sits down, Herc slides a little closer to the armchair and, hesitantly, not sure if he is doing it right, puts his cheek against Stacker's knee. Stacker is wearing suit trousers that he came home in; he took his jacket off, opened up the collar of his shirt before eating: they spend the rest of the night that way, Stacker reading and doing more work , Herc kneeling next to him with his cheek propped against Stacker's knee. Stacker doesn't object if Herc shifts from time to time to keep comfortable. Eventually, in between bits of note-taking on the file he is working through, Stacker starts sliding his left hand over the back of Herc's neck, running his thumb around the edge of the collar, sliding it up a little so that he can trace the edge of the new shirt against Herc's skin. 

The shirt is remarkably soft, softer than anything Herc has ever worn before, and Stacker Pentecost's hands are warm. Herc listens to the ticking of the clock on the wall, and since he doesn't have to keep his eyes on Stacker, he studies the furniture, the leather-bound spines of the old-fashioned books on the shelf, the geometric shapes of the rug underneath his knees. It isn't the first time that he's been in the study, but it's the first time, he's been allowed to take his eyes off Stacker. Before, all he had was a general impressions of everything besides the armchair. Maybe the light stand next to Stacker.

Now, Stacker rubs his thumb over the back of Herc's neck, turns a page. Takes his hand away to hold down the paper to make a note, then brings his hand back. Herc keeps his cheek against Stacker's knee.

So far, it -- 

...

So far, it isn't anything close to what Herc expects sex work to be. Where is the fucking? Stacker hasn't even seen Herc with his shirt off since the interview, and Herc certainly hasn't given Stacker a blow job or done anything close to it. Instead, it's a steady process of getting used to kneeling at Stacker's feet, of having to verbalize things he doesn't want to acknowledge, of wearing the clothes that Stacker wants him to wear and being touched in strange, intimate ways. At the end of the night that Herc kneels on the cushion next to Stacker, he notices that Stacker was a little hard in his trousers, but at eleven, with the wall clock chiming, Stacker says that if Herc wants, he can go to bed. 

Stiffly, Herc gets off his knees, stands a little awkwardly. He looks at Stacker; Stacker looks back at him. Stacker has shifted the files off his lap, and as Herc when he flushes under his new shirt, he sees Stacker's dick jump. Herc has an inkling that he is supposed to ask if he would be allowed to suck Stacker off, much like he has to ask if he needs to use the bathroom during those evenings when he is kneeling, but he can't bring himself to verbalize it. Herc suspects that if he gets down on his knees and put his head on the inside of Stacker's thigh, Stacker would accept it. Maybe even pull Herc's mouth up and stroke his hair during. 

But Herc can't bring himself to do it. He can't say the words; he doesn't want to get back onto his goddamn knees. 

...

Instead, he goes to bed.

...

Instead, he wakes up in the morning and feels a hard, angry resentment in the pit of his stomach. He waits in his room -- small, single-person bed along one side of the wall, storage underneath, and a desk and closet on the other wall. The resentment is still there. Herc eats one of the protein bars in the kitchen and uses the gym and showers. The resentment is still there. He eats lunch standing in the kitchen and doesn't go up to the garden on the roof -- the first one he has ever had unlimited access to. The first time it rained, Herc went up to sit on a bench and stare out at the veil of gray hanging over the city below. Clean, atmospheric water, just pouring down from the sky, soaking into a garden that it must have cost multiple fortunes to transport this far up, that it must cost another fortune to heat and run the force-shields above. For realism, they're programmed to let rain and a certain amount of wind in, but not so much that it becomes uncomfortable or bad for the garden. 

There are drones that take care of the garden. Herc has seen them slipping between the plants. Narrow, almost spider-like things, not much larger than his palm, pulling out plants that don't belong. There is a meal service that delivers by remote-operated drone once a week. A cleaning drone that sweeps off the surfaces in the kitchen and retires to its cubbyhole underneath. Herc hasn't seen another person in the flesh for -- a while, and that night, when Stacker comes home, Herc does what he is supposed to. He is kneeling in the foyer, tracking Stacker as he hangs up his coat, puts away his umbrella because it's raining outside. Herc kneels by the table while Stacker eats. They don't discuss Herc's refusal to offer himself to Stacker, either with words or gestures. Herc goes on kneeling while Stacker watches a vid program and does a little work. 

Herc goes to bed with the resentment like a lump in his stomach. Every time Stacker casually strokes the back of Herc's neck, idly fiddles with Herc's collar, Herc feels it tighten. Get colder. Get heavier. 

...

Instead, he goes to bed.

...

Instead, he wakes up and runs himself to half-exhaustion in the gym and then lifts weights until the household monitoring system chirps at him that he is exceeding acceptable personal safety limits. When Herc insists on continuing, the house triggers a magnetic lock to keep the weights in place. All of them. Even the free weights on the rack won't lift up, and snarling, in a filthy mood, Herc staggers to his shower -- not the one conveniently located next to the gym that he knows Stacker uses from time to time, comfortable with adjustable sprays and pressures, with a bench to sit on with tired legs, but to the tiny, cabinet-sized utilitarian one in his quarters. 

He collapses into bed, damp from the shower, and falls asleep, exhausted: Herc is still rubber-legged when a chime announces that Stacker is close to the Tower and that Herc should kneel in the foyer. 

...

On weekends, Stacker is home most of the day. On the next weekend, which comes two days after Herc tries to lift more weight than the house system deems safe, Herc loses his temper: it's his third weekend with Stacker, and he hasn't been touched anywhere except on his face and the back of his neck. Herc resents that he is afraid; Herc resents that he is getting used to kneeling by Stacker's chair. Herc hates the boredom and silence and lack of anything to do with his hands in a household that cleans itself. Without entirely being conscious of it, the isolation is getting to him. Vid programs and radio broadcasts and talking to Chuck during the single fifteen minute call period allowed each week isn't enough. In fact, Herc sits through a three-hour window when Chuck could call, waiting, and Chuck doesn't. 

Consequently, half an hour later, Herc bangs into the study without being called. He asks Stacker, aggravated, if this is going to be how it works for the next ten years. Is he just going to spend it kneeling?

Stacker had been working. There is a long window behind Stacker, and the words are out of Herc's mouth before he can bite them back: they came out different in than in his head. Not as angry, not as sharp as he'd been feeling. The ball of coldness in his stomach is still there.

Stacker looks up, slowly. Carefully.

Herc has only been with him for sixteen days, but when he sees Stacker's expression, Herc swallows. 

...

House rule: Stacker Pentecost doesn't care if Herc shows how much he dislikes something. Stacker could feel the tension in Herc's shoulders those nights; Stacker went on touching the back of Herc's neck and running his fingers over the edge between the shirt and Herc's skin, partially to see how far he could push Herc, but partially because Herc's opinion was, ultimately, irrelevant. In fact, Stacker prefers honesty and Herc's inability to keep from tightening his shoulders in anger or embarrassment to the baseline conditioning that career sex contractors have. He specifically asked the agency not to implant arousal or submission cues. His lawyer added, for the sake of clarity, that the Agency wasn't to offer any kind of bonus for agreeing to accept them, either. 

...

This is what Stacker does: he positions Herc in front of the comfortable armchair in the corner. 

"Stretch out your arms. All the way, palms up," Stacker says. Herc stares at him, but stretches his arms out. Then, Stacker puts a small, heavy object in each of Herc's palms -- a metal paperweight for the left hand. For the right, it's a stone from the small Zen garden he keeps by the window. It's just about half the size of Stacker's fist. After that, Stacker pours himself a drink from one of the crystal bottles on the decanter tray, and he settles down in the armchair with more paperwork. He glances up once, and Herc grits his teeth and straightens his elbows. 

After that, Stacker doesn't look up again until Herc is starting to tremble.

The old fashioned clock on the wall chimes. 

...

When Herc starts to make noises, low and desperate, coming out of his mouth, Stacker puts his work away -- he looks up for the first noise that Herc can't keep himself from making. His arms had been trembling; now, so are Herc's legs. Herc and Stacker make eye contact. Stacker actually looks away first, going back to his tablet, and Herc has to squeeze his eyes shut to exert his will and keep his right arm from spasming. Stacker goes back to working, but after after Herc makes the second noise, then a third in rapid succession, Stacker looks up and considers the sweat rolling down Herc's face. 

They make eye contact with each other. Herc has to bite down on his lip to keep from making a noise. Stacker puts his work away and leans back in the armchair. 

The next time Herc can't keep from making a noise, and Stacker leans back. Enjoys his drink. Watches. 

...

When Herc finally drops the weights, it's the stone first, followed by the paperweight a second later because Herc can't keep either his hands or his arms from spasming. He collapses, folding up into a ball on the floor. The stone is few feet from his head; the metal paperweight bounced and put a dent in the floor. Herc's chest is heaving, and he doesn't know what is wrong with him. His limbs feel like they're going to rattle off his body; his head spins. It was only two weights. Little. Small. Not heavy. He should have been able to do it, last until Stacker got bored and told him to stop or changed however. 

The sense of failure is -- 

"On the desk," Stacker says, and Herc gets his legs underneath him and wobbles up. He staggers over the desk, and bends over, not quite certain what will happen: turning his head, he watches Stacker finish off his Scotch. Then, Stacker gets up. Slowly, deliberately, he walks ver to the wardrobe in the corner of the room and takes out a thin, whippy cane that Herc can guess, from his days in the Special Forces, will sting and itch and sting and hurt. In fact, Herc can see it by tilting the corner of his head around, and before he can -- 

He isn't proud of the noise he makes before he can clamp down. 

...

Between the weights and the standing and the adrenaline flooding him, Herc's hands are shaking too hard for him to undo his own trousers. 

"Hands flat on the desk," Stacker says, and Herc closes his eyes and bites his lip while Stacker reaches down and unbuttons the trousers, then pulls them down, together with Herc's underwear -- that brush of his palm over Herc's stomach the closest they've had to sexual contact so far, and then Stacker hooks his hand around the waistband and tugs down. Herc tries to keep from shaking while Stacker runs two fingers -- the same two he'd used to tilt Herc's chin up at him on the very first day -- over the warm area between Herc's balls and asshole. 

"When was the last time you had a beating?"

"Bar fight," Herc says, face turned against the desk. 

It's not a lie, not completely.

"Is that your final answer?" Stacker asks. He pulls back and taps the cane slowly against Herc's lower calf, back of his knee, curve of his ass, and Herc tries to get his panting under control -- adrenaline, adrenaline, so much adrenaline and what Herc, for the moment, identifies as fear. 

He is starting to get light headed. Too much oxygen in his body. Herc manages to gasp out _yes, sir_. 

...

Stacker beats Herc, hard, with the thin, whippy, stinging cane until Herc is clutching the far edge of the desk and has given up trying, all over again, to hold in his noises. After one particularly hard set, Herc's thighs ends up spread across the desk because of the reflex to squirm away. Consequently, Stacker stops and tells him, calmly, almost gently, keep his legs together, or it'll be much, much worse: Herc makes a noise that could be a sob and presses his legs together, and after he has his thighs together and has shown that he can hold them together, Stacker goes lays one hard across a stripe that was already there. 

Throughout, Stacker checks to make sure that Herc's hands stay warm. Throughout, Stacker explains that Herc is getting this beating not because he dropped the weights, but first, because he came and spoke to Stacker in that tone of voice. Second, because he didn't tell Stacker that he was close to his limits. Third, because he didn't ask for permission to put the weights down. 

In fact, Stacker repeats these lessons to Herc, one, two, three, between six-stroke sets with the cane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE WEIGHTS ARE ALL [ANALOGIZED](http://analogized.tumblr.com). THE SPEECH ABOUT HOW IT'S GOING TO BE HARD AND HERC ISN'T GOING TO LIKE IT? IT'S WORD FOR WORD FROM [ANALOGIZED](http://analogized.tumblr.com). THE FACT THAT HERC ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT HAVE A SAFE WORD AND THAT HERC SEMI-LIES ABOUT THE LAST BEATING HE GOT? EVEN THE PHRASING, IT'S NOT A LIE COMPLETELY. 
> 
> [ANALOGIZED](http://analogized.tumblr.com).


	6. Chapter 6

What does it mean to be on a whole-risk contract? 

Herc signs one with Stacker, and on the video statement filed the agency, he specifically affirms that he has read Section 15 on bodily harm. Appended as an exhibit to Section 15 are a series of tables with numbers and details -- Herc will get so much more for every scar left on his body by the client at the end of the term, a certain amount if his vision is impaired more than 5%, but less than 15%, another amount if it is impaired more than 15%, but less than 25%. _Semi-permanent body modifications shall be compensated as follows._ There is a formula for calculating the additional payout for any long-term reduction in earning potential or general fitness, with assessments to be done by panel of three independent medical specialists. 

To secure his obligations under the contract, including payment of post-term medical care, among other things, Stacker posted a bond. In event of an accident, the whole of it can be drawn upon to fund care for Herc. Potentially, therefore, the whole of Stacker's bond is at risk: hence, whole risk. 

It's a good contract. 

Generous. 

...

Stacker is generous in other ways, too. 

The agency warned Herc that some patrons confined contractors to quarters: with Pentecost's emphasis on control, that was a possible, even likely. 

Instead, Stacker tells Herc that he, Stacker, works away from home at least sixty hours a week. While Stacker is away, Herc is free to use the gym, the garden, the terrace. The kitchen -- Herc eats the same food as Stacker, heats it in the same microwave, makes tea from the same kettle. There is an espresso machine with levers that Herc hasn't investigated, but he is welcome to use the vid setup in the great room. His contractor quarters have an unrestricted 'Net terminal in his room. Herc does investigate that, and after a few minutes, he works out how to detach the viewscreen, so that it becomes a portable tablet he can take onto the garden. Beginning the second week, Stacker starts to come home with clothes for Herc: a few pieces at a time, but slowly, gradually, Herc realizes that Stacker is replacing, piece by piece, all of the clothes that Herc brought to the house. Shirts, trousers, belt, shoes, even underwear. All similar to what Herc brought, but better. Comfortable from the first wearing. Made to last.

One morning, Herc gets the tablet and looks up the name of the box that his new shoes came in: most of the clothes come home wrapped in tissue paper, in plain paper bags, but the shoes didn't. He wants to know, and the breath goes out of Herc when the page loads and he finds out, in general, how much shoes like the ones on his feet cost. 

Later, once the contract was signed and vetted, the Agency gave Stacker all of the biometric data on file, including detailed measurements of Herc in every dimension possible. Stacker took that to the shops that supplied him his own things. 

Made certain modifications in the house. 

...

Most important of all, Stacker makes clear that Herc is free to talk to Chuck as often as the Academy allows, which works out to a three-hour block every Sunday. Herc spends it sitting with the terminal in his lap, in his quarters, door open in case Stacker calls. Stacker doesn't: Herc can hear Stacker moving around the house or working in the study, but the chime doesn't sound. 

Herc doesn't go to Stacker. 

...

Is it generous for Stacker to start slow, with house rules that are embarrassing and uncomfortable, rules that he knows leave Herc prickly and angry for reasons that he can't articulate? In a way, yes, because Herc still flinches from Stacker's hand. 

In another way, no. Herc would have understood being put on his stomach five minutes after walking through the front door and fucked with spit and an order to muffle his noises. 

Instead, Stacker takes it slow. 

He makes Herc learn to kneel. He makes sure Herc is kneeling in the foyer every night when he comes home from work, kneel again while Stacker eats his dinner and subsequently relaxes in the great room or works in the study. He establishes himself as the only living person Herc sees in the flesh day in, day out, makes sure that his hand is the only one that Herc feels. Short of three weeks in, Herc gets his first beating for questioning Stacker in a tone of voice that Stacker doesn't appreciate, for not telling Stacker when he couldn't take anymore, for not setting the weights down respectfully. Afterwards, when Herc is panting on Stacker's desk, Stacker tells Herc to pull his trousers up: Herc's hands are shaking from a mix of pain and adrenaline. He whimpers, trying to get his trousers up and buttoned enough to stand, but Stacker doesn't step in to help. 

Every time he shifts, the burning in his thighs and ass makes his hands close into fists. His throat feels scratchy. 

"When you get back to your quarters," Stacker says, "You may take cold showers."

Herc blinks, because it hadn't occurred to him that he might not be allowed. 

Slowly, awkwardly, a little shakily, hands clenched into fists, trousers around his ankles, he makes his way back to his quarters. 

...

The next day is Monday, and the chime goes off early morning. Stacker is by the dining table, dressed for the office, and Herc is -- uncomfortable. Awkward. More welts than bruises on the back of his ass and thighs, and they prickle and itch and hurt. Consequently, Herc moves slowly. It took him time and a quantity of bitten-back cursing to get sweatpants on; it takes him time and harsh breathing to get them off when Stacker tells him to. Once they're off, Stacker bends Herc over the edge of the table, and because Herc holds still without being asked and lets Stacker handle him and touch the small of his back and run hands over him, including, gently, lightly, along the edge of some of the welts, Stacker goes to the kitchen and brings back ice packs for the worst of the marks. 

There are more in the freezer, Stacker says, if Herc wants them during the day. 

Herc manages, "Yes, sir." 

The relief from burning is -- Herc can't help squeezing his eyes closed and making a noise in his throat. When he opens his eyes again, Stacker is watching him: brown eyes, dark skin, collared shirt and gray tie and navy blue suit that has a subtle brighter blue thread running through it at intervals. Herc has an idea what the shoes that Stacker bought for him cost; he figures he can't begin to guess what clothes like Stacker has cost. How many suits does Stacker have? How many shirts like that? How rich is he to have a house at the top of a Tower like this and barely live in it? To to hire a sex contractor on a generous, whole-risk contract and not fuck him for two, going on three weeks? 

Calmly, Stacker goes back to the kitchen and comes back with breakfast. Coffee, orange juice. Toast. Nothing too heavy or that would upset the stomach. 

Bent over the table, bare below the waist with ice packs on the worst of the marks, Herc eats from Stacker's hand.


	7. Chapter 7

It's Chuck's first year at the Academy. To keep cadets focused on their work, first-years are allowed one fifteen minute call each Sunday afternoon, and Chuck calls -- seventy, eighty percent of the time? Short, slightly impersonal in a booth with other first-years in their own booths to the left and right, but when Herc and Chuck do talk, it's video and audio together, so Herc gets to see his son. Cadet uniforms are dark blue, with more than a little hint of the formal Forces dress uniform. One moment, Chuck looks ridiculously young in it, and Herc feels guilty; another moment, when talking about something from classes, Chuck looks older than twelve. What twelve year olds talk about a science class lesson that way? Herc guesses that that Chuck sees the gray wall of Herc's quarters and Herc from mid-chest up. Whatever shirt Herc is wearing for Stacker that day, plus the thick Agency-issue safety collar, snug but not too snug around the base of the throat. 

They keep the talk to facts. When Chuck starts doing well, it becomes easier. The percentage of Sundays that Chuck calls goes up: he likes calling to tell his father to talk about how well he is doing. Herc likes hearing it. 

...

One night, Herc is late getting to the foyer. He ignores the chime that tells him that Stacker is ten minutes away by airshuttle, only starts from the roof garden when the five minute chime comes, and comes sliding into the foyer just as the door is opening. Herc is out of breath, still wearing shoes, still wet from the rainstorm he'd been watching, and Stacker doesn't say a word while putting his umbrella away -- the City is rainy in late fall. The rainstorm that put rain drops on Stacker's coat is the same one that soaked Herc, and flushed with anxiety and exertion, Herc tracks Stacker with his eyes, like he is supposed to. 

Stacker doesn't look at him until his coat and umbrella and hat are put away. 

Then, they consider each other. Stacker is in charcoal gray with a dark red tie; Herc is wearing one of the long-sleeved shirts that Stacker gave him, plus khaki's and socks and shoes, all from the bags that Stacker brings home. Wordlessly, without giving the command for Herc to get up, Stacker walks away: Herc has the good sense to stay on his knees, and in thirty seconds, Stacker comes back with one of the chairs from the dining room table. He puts it down in the foyer and tells Herc to arrange himself on it, then pull his trousers down: it's been a six days since Herc got beaten for failing to track Stacker with his eyes. 

The marks are almost gone, and after touching the ones that are still there, Stacker leaves Herc on the chair, ass in the air. Herc closes his eyes. His can feel his heart beating fast in his chest, hears Stacker walk into the kitchen and turn the light on and open the refrigerator. 

...

Stacker has his dinner. He makes himself a glass of Scotch with ice in it, then sits down on the sectional in the great room and watches the news on the vid screen. 

When the program is over, he comes back to the foyer and touches Herc's ass and thighs. Stacker's hands are warm. Broad. Dry. He slides his runs hand a little under Herc's shirt and runs his palm over the curve of Herc's back, then takes his hand out from under the shirt, reaches up, and touches Herc's shoulders and hair. Herc hasn't had a haircut since starting his contract, and it's longer than he usually wears it. With air-drying after the rainstorm, it's soft. A little fluffy. Herc's skin is cool, but he has dried off and had time to warm up. 

"If I did this while you were still soaked from the rain, it would hurt more," Stacker says, fingers resting on Herc's head. 

Herc's eyes are on Stacker's face. "Yes, sir." 

The cane from the study is tucked is under Stacker's arm, and when Stacker steps back, Herc lets his head hang down. There are a few test swishes in the air while Stacker gets a fix on how hard he has to swing to get the force he wants, followed by test taps on the back of Herc's thighs while Stacker works out how far back he should stand. 

"Ready?"

Herc breathes out and says his second _yes, sir_ of the night. They are, respectively, the third and fourth words he's said to another human being in the past twenty-four hours.

... 

Stacker beats Herc on the spot of his infraction. 

Afterwards, Stacker tells Herc that he is not allowed to use cold water on them. He is to be prompt in the morning. 

...

On nights after getting a beating, Herc lies on his stomach. The cane from Stacker's study stings and leaves welts, rather than bruises. As a result, the night directly after, if Stacker says he isn't allowed to use ice or cold water on the welts, they hurt too much to sleep well. 

On the other hand, Herc had worse in the Force. He knows how to deal with pain. Instead of trying to sleep and being frustrated, he listens to the sounds of the house. He lets himself drift in and out of memories. Sometimes, he puts on a radio program because the noise helps distract him. In the morning, when the chime sounds, he follows the lights to Stacker, who touches the marks on Herc's body. Herc is usually dazed, sleep-deprived, hungry, more than a little thirsty, and if he puts up with the handling, Stacker gives him ice. Stacker gives him breakfast. 

Some mornings, Stacker has started reading the morning papers on his tablet with one hand and resting the other on the back of Herc's neck while Herc makes small, soft noises of relief at how good the ice feels. 

...

The night after being beaten for staying on the roof garden and being late, Herc lays on his stomach, breathes through the pain, and doesn't understand the knot in his chest. Why does he feel so tired? Why does he feel wrung out? He drifts in and out of sleep and wakes at dawn from a memory of calling Angela while out on deployment. Where had he been? Afghanistan, probably, from the fact that they were in one of those old MJR-31 transport. The sound of rain on the roof had been familiar, and Herc tries to remember. How old had Chuck been? It was audio only, wasn't it, because of the configuration of the mountains. The old MJR-31's had a round window in the back, and as the senior officer on the gun transport, Herc would've been bunking back there. 

Herc drifts off while trying to call up what the mountains had looked like through the window, but jerks awake when the chime sounds. Dining table, Herc guesses. Stacker said to be prompt, but Herc is so stiff that he knows it'll take a long time for him to get down there. It'll take him even longer if he tries to get into sweatpants, so in his slightly confused, slightly dizzy state, Herc takes a risk and figures that Stacker didn't say anything about dressing and coming down, so he walks into the room, naked from the waist down, welts vivid on his ass and thighs. His face is soft with sleep, and when Stacker tells him to bend over, Herc does it quietly, settling his face against the wood, closing his eyes halfway while Stacker touches him. 

Stacker waits until Herc is whimpering in pleasure from the ice packs. Then, hand resting on the small of Herc's back, Herc's shirt hitched most of the way up his back, Stacker lets himself smile. 

...

Chuck isn't shy about telling his father how well things are going. He pauses, smiles, with a little pride in his voice about being better than kids that have never spent a night outside a Tower in their lives: solid marks in mathematics, improvement in physics, has chosen hand-to-hand sparring as his physical elective next semester. 

Next semester, Herc understands, Chuck will be allowed visitors. Next year, Chuck will be allowed e-mail. 

In five years, Chuck can have a mobile phone with him on campus.


	8. Chapter 8

Herc has, on his right shoulder, a tattoo of a heart with Angela's name on a banner underneath. His left shoulder blade is inked with the insignia of his old unit in the Security Forces, and there is a scar across that bicep from the removal of his Forces tracker chip: serve your twenty, and when they take it out, they run the skin regen over it a little, just enough so that the ugly scar disappears, but you're left with a thin red line until the end of you days, the sign of an honorable discharge. Get booted out before your twenty, and they yank the chip and leave the whole scar, long as two knuckles on a man's finger and twisted. 

Herc has the full, ugly scar.

...

Other marks from the Forces: the white line across Herc's sternum from where an electroblade caught him when they were doing Slum clearance for Jakarta Tower, a knot of tissue on his hip from an improvised bomb on the ground for Shanghai Tower. There had been no time for fine, detailed cosmetic work; they got the shrapnel that was buried inside muscle or dangerously close to internal organs. The piece by his hip was neither, and who was looking for smooth skin in a Forces lifer? Generally, too, Herc has fewer marks on his back than most almost-twenty year men in the Forces, because he kept his nose clean. Did well. Got promoted. Had a wife and son to provide for. 

After signing, the agency inquired: did Stacker want surface work done? It was part of the normal delivery package, and they could clean off the tattoos and the scars. What about depilation, either temporary or permanent? And Stacker said, very clearly, using small words to avoid misunderstanding, that they could give him a haircut, but he wanted every mark and tattoo and scar and freckle. 

He wanted he was buying. He would do his own training and modification. 

...

Fourteen weeks into Herc's term of service, Stacker comes home early and says they'll be going out for dinner later that day: he has a dinner invitation at another Tower, and he is bringing Herc. 

The clothes in the dry cleaning bag are for Herc. 

...

What do sex contractors wear to formal Towers dinners? Herc's unit didn't do much event security, but he remembers a time his unit was posted to Bangkok Tower for other reasons, and it was all hands on deck for a fancy state-corporate dinner with multiple heads of trading houses attending. Angela wanted all the non-classified details -- what did they wear? Herc explains that he was on the back entrance, so he spent most of his night patrolling in the rain, looking through the thermal scope on his combat suit, but they did get to see some important person from one of the houses arrive -- Trespasser, maybe? Tall woman, bleached hair with green streaks in it, security contractors in front and behind. She was coming separately from the rest of the delegation for reasons not disclosed, but Angela had wanted to know the most about the sex contractor. 

Something in trading house colors, diaphanous, sequins, high, high heels. Visibly, underneath the clothes, no underwear. 

A leash. 

...

What does Stacker Pentecost's sex contractor wear to a party, even if they're three months into a contract and still haven't been fucked? 

Herc lifts off the plastic dry cleaning bag and feels intense relief. 

The nicest white collared shirt that Herc has ever felt under his hands, crisp and soft at the same time. Gray suit trousers. No tie. Herc showers, dries himself carefully, trims his fingernails, finds the right-colored dress socks to wear. Puts on the expensive shoes that came in the box with the name that he looked up, and when Herc comes back to Stacker's bedroom, Herc asks Stacker, a little hesitantly, not sure how to frame it, if he should -- . Stacker shakes his head. 

Instead, Herc shines Stacker's shoes, carefully, making sure not to get any of the polish on himself. 

Stacker is wearing a shirt with French cuffs, and Herc helps him with the cufflinks: small, blue enamel with a silver eagle on them. He helps Stacker into the suit jacket, and then, Stacker reaches over and undoes another button on Herc's shirt, so that the contractor collar is more visible. 

More obvious. 

...

Stacker turns down the agency offer to have Herc's scars and tattoos removed, and also turns down their offer to have loyalty and submission cues implanted. 

The agency representative pauses, then gently, tactfully reminds Stacker that Herc Hansen's baseline sex drives are mostly directed towards women. Hansen was happily married to a woman for over a decade. Some basic arousal conditioning might improve Stacker's level of satis -- 

But Stacker makes it clear to them, and he makes it vivid to Herc Hansen after arrival, on one of those nights when Herc is practicing kneeling and maintaining eye contact even though every inch of his personality and socialization and training says for him to look away: they're in the great room with the high ceiling above and the dining table for twelve behind. The vid screen is, in fitting with the size of the room and the quality of Stacker's home, large. Stacker puts two fingers underneath Herc's chin and tilts Herc's face up, so they're looking each other in the eye: Herc hasn't gotten used to tracking Stacker yet, and Stacker says, quietly, calmly, that he doesn't want Herc pretending to like things that he doesn't like. He doesn't want someone who'll tell him what he thinks Stacker wants to hear. He wants actual reactions. When Herc moans, he wants to know it's Herc moaning. When Herc makes a noise as if he is in pain, Stacker wants to know it's because Herc is actually in pain. 

They won't play any games where Herc calls Stacker by a ridiculous name. He'll call Stacker _sir_. When he needs to refer to Stacker by name to other people he can say _Stacker_. 

"Understood?"

Herc breathes out, slowly, carefully. Stacker listens to him swallow, and watches the information sink into the face in front of him. Herc's face tightened on the word _pain_ , and got tighter on each repetition of the word. 

Eventually, Herc nods, then he remembers that he is required to verbalize. "Yes, sir."

...

Stacker notices: that Herc takes the information and considers it. 

Stacker notices: that _yes_ takes effort to force out, but once it comes, the _sir_ follows. 

...

Stacker repeats himself. 

Honesty. Hard work. Obedience. 

He lets go of Herc's chin and watches how the man sags, shoulders coming down, head dropping. Herc is blushing from hairline to the tops of his collarbones. 

...

Herc remembers staring at the sex contractor on a sequined leash, on display and happy for the advertising. Herc remembers Angela catching her breath in a mix of excitement and disbelief and being scandalized, then asking for details: like something out of a magazine, like something out of a vid program. When he came home for leave three months later, there was a family dinner with her parents and Chuck, and he was -- never comfortable with them, and to make it up to him, that night, in bed with the lights off, Chuck tucked away, Angela put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him, and asked if he wanted to play client and -- 

She was laughing. 

Herc remembers laughing, too, as he put his hands under her T-shirt, telling her that she was wearing too much for a sex contractor. Remembers, too, waking up afterwards, that apartment: the alarm clock glowing green in the darkness, the clutter of Angela's makeup and toiletries on the dresser, the off-pitch hum of the air recirculator because the secondary coil needed replacing, but it was a rental unit, and the landlord was cheap. Herc offered to put a new one in while he was home on leave, but Angela shrugged, said why bother? 

Angela getting up in the middle of the night to check on Chuck in his bed. 

...

For their first dinner out as client and contractor, Herc shines Stacker's shoes, being careful not to get any of the polish on himself. He helps Stacker into his cufflinks and clothes, and Stacker says there is a clothes brush on the dresser. Herc slips out to get it and comes back. Then, on the marble floor of the bathroom, he kneels and brushes off Stacker's trousers. 

It's fourteen weeks without leaving Stacker's home, fourteen weeks without seeing another human being in the flesh. On the trip over, Stacker tells Herc to kneel on the airshuttle floor next to Stacker's seat, and he puts two fingers under Herc's chin and explains appropriate conduct: during dinner. Herc is supposed to stand behind Stacker. Stacker doesn't care for the people they're having dinner with tonight, so they'll be leaving promptly after dinner. 

"Did you eat?"

Herc shakes his head. He hadn't thought about it, and Stacker tells him he'll have to wait until they get home. 

Waiters will be serving from the right, and Stacker will be seated midtable, so Herc needs to hold absolutely still and stay directly behind Stacker's chair. 

"Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Herc says, a little red, but not flinching when Stacker takes his hand away.

...

Instead, Herc is -- fourteen weeks without leaving Stacker's home, fourteen weeks without seeing another human being in the flesh, fourteen weeks without hearing another human voice in the same room. He trails three steps behind Stacker into a _small dinner party_ of twenty-six guests attended by a dozen security contractors, two dozen actual Security Forces outside doing checks for small arms and ident verifications and moving in and out to coordinate and run and vet, an army of servers, a six-piece string band playing in the corner. Herc jerks out of the way when the waiter comes to deliver soup to the person sitting next to Stacker. He bumps into another waiter and --

Herc yelps. 

Stacker is still in the chair, but he turns, slowly. 

Herc looks at Stacker, and Stacker looks back at him. Fourteen weeks is, comparatively, not a lot of time to learn fear, but Herc is beginning to understand what Stacker expects. 

"You'll have to excuse me," Stacker says to the person he'd been talking to. 

Herc watches as Stacker folds his napkin and puts it on the table.  
...

The bathroom is small. Toilet, sink, shelf with display of small, expensive decorative items, too small for two large men, and before Herc can work out how to kneel in the limited space, Stacker strips Herc out of his shirt and undershirt. He runs his hands over Herc's chest and arms and hands to make sure they aren't burned, then balls up the shirt and undershirt and shoves them into the waste basket. 

They look at each other, and Stacker says, in a reasonable tone of voice. "Take your trousers down. Put your hands on the sink."

Slowly, feeling stiff in the shoulders, Herc turns. He fumbles with the belt, but gets it down before Stacker becomes too impatient: Stacker doesn't have the cane from his study, but Herc has still learned, in fourteen weeks, just how much Stacker's bare hand can hurt.

...

Stacker catches Herc's eyes up in the mirror over the sink, so he shoves his Herc's face down into the dry sink. Herc holds his face against the ceramic and tries to brace himself with his arms, so that his face doesn't end up jammed underneath the faucet. 

Behind Stacker, the door to the bathroom is open: the dinner is at the personal home of someone, and Stacker took them to a bathroom towards the back of the house, near the kitchen and caterers. Caterers are coming and going in the hallway behind them, and even with his face in the sink, Herc hears the rattle of plates and covers, the managers yelling to servers. Smells the steam they're using to keep food warm, but one by one, sense by sense, sight and smell and sound drop away and are replaced by pain and how much Stacker is hurting him and the difficulty of not holding noises back, but also not exaggerating anything for effect. Stacker works steadily, without bothering to tell Herc what he did wrong or make Herc verbalize, between sets, what he did wrong. He doesn't even bother with sets. 

If any caterers stop in the doorway to watch, Herc can't tell. Stacker doesn't say. 

...

Another thing: after the bathroom, they go back to the dining room, but instead standing behind Stacker's chair, Herc spends the rest of dinner kneeling at Stacker's left, hands at parade rest with the fingers of his right hand tucked behind his left wrist. Wordlessly, being professionals, the servers adjust and begin bringing Stacker food only from the other side. 

Another thing: Herc doesn't have a shirt.

Another thing: Herc comes off the airshuttle, three steps behind Stacker, and he looks just good enough to pass as a sex contractor. A little old, but if you're good, you can keep working for decades. Conservatively dressed, but who expected something else from a warhorse like Pentecost and that's Pentecost's own tailor, isn't it? With the error at table, though, with his shirt off, there is no way to put Herc down as same old, same before. The eye does not slide over Pentecost's boy with his shirt off, as one gossip columnist puts it. Looks better with his clothes off, but on the other hand, why would a career sex worker mark themselves up like Herc does, or not have any marks left by old patrons erased at the end of the contract? What kind of patron wouldn't have that taken care of? 

No, Herc Hansen isn't just street, he's _Slums_. 

It's a little window into Pentecost, too. A reminder that you can take a boy out of the Slums, but -- 

...

Another thing: "Your contractor's down there already, Pentecost. You going to show us what he does?" 

Stacker doesn't dignify that with a response. 

The woman on the other side of Herc reaches over and casually runs her fingers down Herc's back; he is still holding his hands behind his back, right hand in the palm of his left. She goes across his shoulder blade perpendicular to the spine; Herc holds onto the fingers of his right hand hard enough for them to go numb. She pushes nails into him -- again, on the shoulder blade, left side, on the tattoo of the rays of the sun shining out from behind the Southern Cross. This time, Stacker notices: he responds by putting his hand on the back of Herc's neck, bending his cheek towards the table, and he keeps his hand on the back of Herc's neck. Every time a comment comes up -- another push, another joke, another innuendo or question about letting the contractor have some relief, because Pentecost has him on the standard agency aphrodisiac cocktail, doesn't -- 

Herc spends the rest of the dinner, eyes on Stacker, cheek on the tablecloth, breathing fast with Stacker's hand over the back of his neck. 

...

After the quail comes the venison, and after the venison comes cheese, then fruit, then bowls of nuts, and trays of port and dessert wine. Stacker slides his chair back, makes his goodbyes, and in the foyer, Herc helps Stacker into his coat, then the scarf. They go outside. It's raining -- not heavily, but spitting down, standard winter weather, and Stacker stands comfortably inside the security cordon while the airshuttle detaches from its parking pod and floats down. Stacker talks a little to the Forces guards and pulls on his gloves: they didn't bring an umbrella, but Stacker has his coat, his scarf, his gloves. Herc's shirt is in a trash bin in a bathroom he couldn't find his way back to, and he doesn't want to go back into the building. He isn't going to ask Stacker if they can wait inside, either. 

The rain isn't cold. Herc goes on standing behind Stacker, hands still tucked behind him, rain down his face, in his hair, soaking the waistband of his suit trousers. 

Herc rides back in the airshuttle, kneeling next to Stacker, shivering with cold as the rain dries on his skin, feeling the stiff, distant feeling in his ass and thighs and trying to judge how much more he'll hurt by morning. 

...

They --

...

That night, after they get back to the house, Herc knocks on the door of the master bedroom. 

If Stacker is surprised, he doesn't let it show in his voice: he tells Herc to come in, and Herc tries to look him in the face, but struggles. Stacker is wearing sweatpants, but no shirt. Herc changed into one of the sets of pajama bottoms that Stacker brought home for him, plus a clean white undershirt. Herc thinks there should be words, but can't -- 

...

Instead, Herc, quietly, without being asked, goes down to his knees. 

"By the bed," Stacker says, sounding calm. 

Herc goes over, still on his knees, a little awkward from the spanking. He tucks his hands back behind his back, and Stacker finishes his routine: brushing his teeth, rinsing his mouth with mouthwash, putting lotion on his skin. Then, he gets into bed and turns out the lights: he leaves Herc kneeling by the side the bed, but doesn't object when Herc settles his cheek on the edge of the mattress or shifts his hands out of parade rest. The position isn't comfortable, but towards dawn, Herc dozes. He wakes from a dream of coming out from the party to find Angela, pregnant in her wedding dress. Stacker is there, and so is Scott, wearing a Security Forces dress uniform. Scott is holding the door on the airshuttle for Angela. It's raining, and Stacker turns to look at Herc. 

For the rest of the night, Herc keeps his eyes open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [analogized](analogized.tumblr.com) had the idea for the dinner party and the soup and the bathroom. Mostly, I just shrieked.


	9. Chapter 9

In the morning, Herc is stiff in the muscles and joints and knees and back.

...

In the morning, Herc watches the wall on the other side of the Stacker's bed go transparent: at night, it had been the same grayish concrete as the outer walls in the other part of the house. In the dark, after Stacker cuts the lights, it looks like other walls. Herc stares at it while drifting into a dream about Angela and Scott and rain. Afterwards, he wakes, heart beating fast in the darkness. Eventually, his heart slows, but Herc goes on kneeling in the dark, listening to the sounds of the house and Stacker breathing. He stays on his knees; he looks at the blank wall. Herc thinks in a blurred way about choices that he has made; Stacker's bedroom has no clock in it. The house system keeps track of time for him, and eventually, Herc stops counting breaths or heartbeats because it makes time crawl past. 

To stay awake and keep himself from getting too stiff, he eases his cheek off the mattress and starts to roll his neck, shifts the way he holds his arms or bears weight on his knees. His ass hurts; his bones ache. In the bathroom at dinner, Stacker had been hitting him hard, raising his hand high and not giving Herc a chance to catch his breath between blows. Herc is sore; Herc hurts. He isn't sure whether he should have stayed in his quarters last night or come to kneel in front of Stacker: an hour or so before dawn, Herc realizes that the wall across from is a different color than the other walls in the room. Half an hour before dawn, it has gone transparent enough that he can make out a curving line a third of the way up the wall, plus a few static bright points of light. Other lights move. 

Slowly, the line a third of the way up resolves into the curve of Victoria Harbor. Slowly, the fixed lights of resolve into the aerial signals on the tops of Towers further down the side of the mountain. The moving lights are airshuttles for early commuters, the last delivery vehicles bringing food and supplies and workers to the Towers. 

Slowly, Herc realizes that the entire wall of Stacker's bedroom is techglass. Floor to ceiling, edge to edge, a single sheet, large enough for the windshield of a second-class Jaeger gunship and possibly the most expensive purchase in the house besides -- 

Herc kneels by the bed; he watches Stacker wake. 

... 

At dawn, after fourteen weeks and as many beatings, Herc understands that he is supposed to ask for permission to get into bed. He can't bring himself to do it. The words won't come out. He also can't bring himself to climb up without asking and fold himself around Stacker: Stacker would like it less than if Herc used words, then waited for permission. At this stage, though, he would accept it. 

Herc can't bring himself to do either. His limbs are stiff; his heart refuses. 

Instead, he stays on his knees and counts Stacker's breaths. 

...

Eventually, it's clear Herc isn't going to either ask or come up onto the bed, so Stacker sits up. Herc is tired and sore, but he knows house rules, so he tracks Stacker with his eyes. He watches how calmly Stacker sits up and swings his feet over the edge of the bed, then how calmly Stacker picks up the tablet on the bedside table, checks the high-priority message queue to see if anything important came through the overnight. Nothing important enough for Stacker to reply to, so he sets the tablet down on the bedside table and looks over. 

"Here," Stacker says and moves his knees apart.

Slowly, on his knees and unable to keep from making a face when pain goes up his left side from a muscle in his lower back that doesn't want to cooperate -- Herc does. 

"Put your hands behind your back," Stacker says, and Herc does that. He knows this part, and he expects Stacker to put a hand against his face: Stacker does, and Herc holds still under the thumb touching his mouth, the fingers along his cheek and sliding under his jaw. He has less stubble than usual because he shaved for dinner the night before. 

"Close your eyes," Stacker says. His hand is still on Herc's face, and Herc closes his eyes. 

"Open your eyes," Stacker says. 

Herc opens them again. It's an exercise they've done before, with Herc opening and closing his eyes on command. 

"Breathe in," Stacker says. Herc does, a deep breath that shifts his shoulders and face under Stacker's hand. 

"Breathe out." 

Herc breathes out. They've done this before, and Herc remembers the beating he got back for pushing back at Stacker over it. He remembers not liking it before; he doesn't trust it now, but at least it's familiar. At least he knows it. In contrast, the tiredness and ache and stiffness mix together to make Herc feel -- strange. A little dizzy. Unsteady on his knees. Also new: one repetition each of closing his eyes and opening them and breathing in and breathing out, and Stacker tells Herc to close his eyes again. After he gives the second command, Herc opens his eyes as Stacker takes his hand away. 

Stacker is sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing the track pants he slept in, but no shirt. The bedroom has gone fully transparent behind Stacker; Herc can make out, as background to Stacker, a gray winter workday morning. Towers on the Peak, the Towers on the other side of the Harbor, the full flow of morning traffic in the air. Herc makes sure to keep his eyes focused on Stacker and let the background stay blurry, but he can't keep himself from making a noise in his throat, high-pitched and afraid, when Stacker hooks a thumb around the waistband of his track pants, lifts his hips, and gets them down past his knees. 

"Keep your eyes on me," Stacker says. 

...

How long it been since Herc Hansen had the taste of another man's come in his mouth? 

At least fifteen years. Before he was married. 

...

What was Herc thinking about when he backed away from the server and got soup across his front? How good a combat suit felt, even though the plates always pinched under the arms. Properly powered, they absorbed impact from hits, turned aside blades, stopped anything short of a direct plasma bolt. Communication wires were integrated in them; at the banquet, the security contractors inside had been wearing them underneath their suits, and Herc lost himself in a memory about the sound the zipsuit underneath made, the straps at the waist and side of the vests, how the buzz on the skin meant deployment, activity. Fear. Excitement and, with Herc's seniority, responsibility. 

A server surprised him out of the memory, and he stumbled backwards. 

Outside, there had been Security Forces, including an actual lieutenant coordinating arrivals and departures. Stacker put on his gloves, said he didn't mind the rain, and had a few casual, easy words about traffic. Herc stood behind, hands tucked behind him, and got wet from the water down his face, over the collar, and onto his chest. The grunts were bored and sneaking looks. The one closest to him was woman, Herc thought, but it was hard to tell behind the combat suit, helmet, boots, gun. No suit, just business, with a shoulder patch showing a unit insignia of four equally sized stars arranged in a diamond. 

The airshuttle was taking longer than expected, possibly due to the weather; the conversation between Stacker and the lieutenant turned to the weapons at hand. 

"I see your unit is using Jaeger DX-4's," Stacker said, turning a little towards the lieutenant. "How do you like them?" 

"We're adjusting. They had us on the Otachi submachines for six years before, so it's a process," the lieutenant replied, and Stacker nodded. 

Behind them, Herc saw the eyes under the helmet and visor touch the unit tattoo on his left shoulder, recognize it for what it was, then look away, slowly, to make her contempt clear. 

...

What did a soldier in the Forces have except his unit? Times were hard, and some left before their twenty to go contract, which was bad enough, but how could anyone could disgrace their unit by keeping their unit mark for sex work? What if some Tower was fucking them up the ass and looking at it? What if somebody wanted to come all over it? With the shirt off and the collar on, following Stacker around three steps behind, there was nothing else Herc could be doing. 

Pity from the security contractors. Contempt from active Security Forces grunts. 

Herc remembers his shame; Herc remembers -- 

...

The morning afterwards, for the first time, he sees Stacker naked below the waist. Light is coming comes through the techglass window, and Stacker isn't wearing underwear under the track pants. Dark brown skin and darker body hair. No tattoos or marks or scars that Herc can see, heavy balls, a thick cock, and Stacker specifies that Herc is to keep his eyes on Stacker's right hand. 

Herc struggles with keeping his eyes on Stacker's hand as he strokes himself orgasm. 

He struggles even more with the knowledge that Stacker is watching his reactions. 

...

The last time Herc Hansen had the taste of another man's come in his mouth was before Angela, when he was still an enlisted grunt. A guy in munitions, outside the chain of command, and they spent most of a week-long leave drinking and getting each other off inside a motel room. Before that, trading handjobs with a friendly face, maybe getting on his knees a handful of times in the back alley behind a Forces bar with the understanding he was going to get his dick sucked in return. Herc disclosed on his sexual history form with the agency, and he knows the basics. He understands about putting his lips over his teeth, how blowjobs have nothing to do with blowing out and everything about pressure and suction and wetness. 

...

Stacker Pentecost has his own standards, his own ideas: he gets his track pants down, strokes himself to an orgasm while looking at Herc's face, and catches his come in one cupped palm. He holds his palm out at Herc, and Herc hesitates for a breath, two breaths, then bends forward at the waist until his mouth meets Stacker's palm. Stacker puts his left hand over the back of Herc's neck and keeps it there until Herc has cleaned Stacker's hand off to satisfaction. 

Afterwards, Stacker tells Herc that there are ice packs in the freezer. Herc can use those. Alternatively, he can use the bathtub in Stacker's bathroom or the soaking tub on the roof garden. The ice will help numb the bruises, but might leave Herc more stiff. The hot water will help with the stiffness, but will make the bruises larger. More vivid. His choice. 

Stacker leaves for work, and Herc opts for neither. Instead, he goes back to his quarters, shuts the door, and steps into the shower, water turned on burning hot. 

Herc braces his arms on the walls. 

...

Memories of getting blowjobs from Angela: the first time on the floor of her apartment, Herc in his best non-uniform clothes and Angela in a gray dress, straddling his chest and unbuttoning his shirt. She slipped two fingers in his mouth; Herc smelled the perfume on her wrist, and her knuckles were wet against his stomach while she undid his belt. Another: from a few years back when he swung not being on deployment for her birthday. Chuck was with his grandparents for the night, and he and Ang went out for dinner. It was early spring, and the air was cool, so he put his jacket over her shoulders, and they rode the elevator up hand-in-hand like teenagers. Herc got the front door halfway closed; there was a patch of light on the floor from the transom window over the door, and still wearing his jacket over her bare shoulders, Ang pushed him up against the wall and went down on her knees. 

Herc remembers Angela smiling up at him. Herc remembers how her hair felt under his hands, how warm and wet her mouth was, the little noise of satisfaction she made when she had her mouth wrapped around him and down all the way, her nose against his stomach and hot breath on his skin. She put her thumb and forefinger around the base of his cock, and she kissed him afterwards. Herc could taste himself on her tongue. Herc remembers -- 

...

Years later, Herc steps out of the shower and wipes a hole in the fog over the mirror, so that he can see himself. His bathroom is small, narrow. The walls are plastic, and Herc studies how the heat of the shower has made his skin flush, how his hair is longer than he likes it, but how his shoulders look good. Fourteen weeks of no drinking, plenty of sleep, real food made from real plants and animals, nothing to do but work out and lie around. His shoulders and upper back unknotted in the shower, but everything below his shoulder blades is still stiff. His mouth tastes -- 

He dries himself off and puts the towel down the laundry chute. Shaves for the day. 

On Sunday, Herc waits by the terminal. Chuck calls, and they talk for fifteen minutes about school, grades, what Chuck is taking next semester. Chuck sees, but does not bring up, the collar around Herc's neck: Herc sees Chuck looking at it, the stubborn look that sets on the mouth and eyebrows. He remembers it on Angela. 

Herc knows, but does not mention, the fact that Chuck will be staying at the Academy during the holidays. Where else would Chuck go? 

...

Stacker Pentecost, it turns out, has an adopted daughter.


	10. Chapter 10

What does Mako Mori look like? 

Nothing like Stacker Pentecost.  
...

Is Herc surprised by Stacker having a daughter?

Yes. There are no pictures of her at the house, and Herc expects that in good families, the house is plastered with pictures of the ones they love: Angela had pictures all over the apartment, starting in the foyer, continuing along the walls. Wedding pictures, pictures of her with her parents, pictures of Chuck with her parents. Herc in his Forces uniform, dress and regular, Chuck and Herc together, Angela and Chuck and Herc together at a water park one summer when Herc got a week back with the family, and it was hot. The logo down in the corner reminded Herc every time he walked past it how much they'd overpaid for it, but the memories were there: Herc can call up the heat of the day, the coolness of the water, how good Angela had looked in her blue swimsuit and the admiring expression on Chuck's face when Herc explained that the red marks on his arms and shoulders were from a combat suit. He'd been on four weeks active duty in the slums outside San Francisco Tower, and they slept in bunks in combat suits.

"Do they hurt?" Chuck asked.

Simultaneously embarrassed and pleased, Herc shrugged to suggest, _not really_. Chuck opened his mouth to ask another question, but a water park employee working on commission asked if she could take their picture. 

...

In contrast: Stacker Pentecost doesn't keep pictures by his bed or desk or anywhere on the walls of the house. 

Further: there are three residential bedrooms at the house; Stacker has the largest one with the techglass window that runs from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Bathroom, shower, separate soaking tub, walk-in closet together with dressing area. 

The other two are smaller and share a bathroom: they have windows that look onto the Peak. On clear days, the view is into the Strait and the small island beyond. On wet days, the fog rolls against the windows in a grey-white wall, and the furniture is good, but plain. A bed. A desk with a table. An empty wardrobe. On the last Saturday before Christmas, Herc comes out of his contractor quarters and -- hesitates in the hall, but decides he can accept being useful in this way. Stacker is in what Herc understands to be one of the guest bedrooms, making up the bed. He looks up when Herc comes in. 

Together, they turn the mattress over. Together, they put on new sheets on, folding the edges under then up and back. Stacker smoothes the folds, makes sure they're snug, then walks inspection over the attached bathroom, which is as pin-neat as the housekeeping robots can make ceramic and tile. As a reward for coming in and helping without having to be asked, Stacker tells Herc that he has an adopted daughter who will be coming home from school for the holiday. This is her room. 

Herc blinks, tries to keep the surprise from his face. 

...

The last Sunday before Christmas, Stacker sends the airshuttle for Mako, then spends the afternoon reading in the greatroom. Herc comes to kneel next to him after the end of the three-hour window for calls at the Academy, and when the house system chimes to announce that the airshuttle has landed, Stacker puts his files away and goes to the door, bringing Herc with him as far as the coat stand. 

"Stay," Stacker says. Herc goes to his knees, a little uncertain about how things will work with Mako in the house. 

"Hands," Stacker says, after a moment of consideration, and Herc tucks his hands behind his back. Instead of the small adjustments that Stacker has started making to Herc's posture, adjusting an elbow there, straightening Herc's shoulders, though, Stacker opens the double front doors. The path between the front door and the landing pad is paved, and Herc stays on his knees, three steps behind Stacker at the door while the daughter of the house comes home, carrying a backpack and pulling a rolling suitcase behind her. At the threshold, Mako bows deeply to Stacker. Stacker bows back to her, not quite as deeply. They say a few words to each other in Japanese that Herc isn't meant to understand, and Mako smiles at Stacker. Stacker takes the rolling suitcase from Mako. 

Stacker does not introduce Herc to Mako, and Mako, aged twelve and in possession of excellent manners, does not ask for his name. Her eyes pass over him to the room beyond. 

...

Does she look him in the face? Herc gets an impression of dark eyes, bobbed hair, and a dark blue school uniform that looks like -- 

Mako, Herc guesses, is around Chuck's age, and Stacker takes Mako's suitcase. Companionably, side-by-side, they move into the house. Herc listens to them go, talking in what sounds like English, going towards the guest bedroom Stacker made up: Herc hesitates, unsure, uncomfortable for multiple reasons. He counts to thirty, slowly. Stacker doesn't come back; there are no further commands and the walls of the house don't light up to show him where to go, so still a little unsure, Herc unclasps the fingers of his right hand from his left wrist. 

He gets up. 

Underneath the trousers, Herc's legs are marked from being slow to his knees at breakfast. He closes the double doors. 

...

That night, at dinner, while kneeling next with his face turned into Stacker's leg, Herc realizes that his first, startled impression of her school uniform was right. She came to dinner in a neat sweater and jeans, but when Mako refers to _school_ , Herc realizes -- she means the Academy. She mentions teachers that Chuck has mentioned. She talks about the _Quad_ and walking laps being a punishment. She comments on taking hand-to-hand sparring as her elective next semester. 

Heart in his throat, Herc waits for Stacker to say, casually, that the man on his knees by the table has a son at the Academy. 

...

Kneeling by the table with Stacker's hand resting on the back of his neck, Herc is vividly aware Stacker knows where Chuck is: Herc remembers telling the agency, in the first minutes of his first interview, that he had a son at school. They would have followed up for security clearance; he provided Chuck's name and date of birth and ident number for that purpose. Pentecost has been generous, has never tried to interrupt the three hours a week Herc spends waiting by his terminal for a call from Chuck, but -- 

Every Sunday when Chuck does call, Herc sees the stubborn look that sets on his mouth and eyebrows. He remembers it on Angela. 

At a school with the children of people who hire security contractors, Herc believes, Chuck would already be somewhat embarrassed by the idea of his father being a security contractor, and when Stacker doesn't say anything to Mako about _your classmate, Charles Hansen_ and instead changes the topic to recent activity by certain of the Kaiju-aligned trading houses -- Herc holds his breath, but Mako picks up the topic with enthusiasm, actual excitement, and without thinking about it, Herc buries his face against Stacker's thigh to cover his relief. 

...

That night, Herc goes to Stacker in his bedroom while Stacker finishes his evening reading. 

"Close the door," Stacker says, looking up and seeing that it's Herc. 

So Herc does, and with his back still to Stacker, he takes a breath, then lets it back out before turning around. 

Moving quickly, so that he doesn't lose his nerve, Herc crosses the room and kneels without being asked. 

...

That night, Stacker continues what they've been practicing: Stacker is wearing an undershirt and track pants, and when he is done reading, Herc undresses him, coming up to kneel on the bed to ease the shirt over Stacker's head and arms, then going back to the floor to get Stacker out of his track pants. Herc works as he's been shown, left leg first, then right leg, cupping his palm under the heel as he works the elastic over each foot. When they're off, Herc folds both the pants and the shirt and puts them on the bed next to Stacker. Neat. Tidy. Stacker is naked and Herc is still clothed, but one of them is sitting on the bed, and the other is kneeling on the floor. Herc keeps his eyes on Stacker's face. His breaths are shallow, and the marks on his legs from being slow to his knees at breakfast are fading, but still visible. His collar gleams in the bedside lighting. 

Is anyone confused on who is on control? Stacker touches Herc's face and neck, pulls Herc to between his knees by hooking two fingers in the ring on the collar. 

...

Stacker brings himself to orgasm with his hand on the back of Herc's neck: they've been working on this, and Stacker catches his come in his right palm and holds it out to Herc. Herc licks once, up the middle, across the longest part of Stacker's palm and is about to bring his head down to lick again when Stacker pulls his hand away. 

"Close your eyes," Stacker says. "Put your hands behind you."

Herc does, flinching a little when Stacker takes his clean hand and grips Herc by the shoulder: now, Herc knows what is coming next, but he closes his eyes. He puts his wrists on the small of his back. 

Stacker rubs the mess in his palm into Herc's face. Herc tries, hard, not to squirm. 

...

Afterwards, Herc expects he'll kneel by Stacker's bed all night with it on his face and on his tongue and have to ask to clean himself in the morning. 

Instead, Stacker puts on his track pants and walks to the bathroom: Herc hears water running, and Stacker comes back with a washed hand and a warm, wet hand towel. He sits down on the edge of the bed and wipes Herc's face with with the towel, carefully. Then, he tells Herc that he won't be needed for the rest of the night. When Herc goes back to his quarters, he is allowed to rinse his mouth. 

"Mako used to have nightmares," Stacker says, quietly, standing up. "When she went to school, I promised that she could always come to me for them."

Herc blinks, and he looks up the length of Stacker's body: standing, Stacker has two inches on Herc, and Herc is still kneeling. His hands are still behind his back, and his face is wet from being wiped. 

...

How else are things different while Mako is home? 

There is someone else around the very large house during the day. 

...

How else are things different while Mako is home? 

Mako studies most of the day, getting herself up in the morning, fixing herself breakfast in the kitchen. Stacker doesn't leave instructions, so Herc hesitates. How much is he allowed to talk to her? How should he treat her? He tries to map her behavior onto Chuck, but the result confuses him. Mako is self-contained and self-assured and self-directed: after getting herself food in the morning, she works on the dining room table, spreading books and papers across the wood. _Exams are over,_ she says, softly, when she sees him looking on his way to the gym, _but there is next semester._

She is still there when he comes back. Herc hesitates, unsure if he should offer to fix her lunch, but comes into the great room to find her carrying back one of the delivered meals. Herc heats his own meal, and he listens to her queue up an entertainment program on her tablet. She watches while she eats, giggling around a mouthful of brown rice and chicken. 

...

Herc struggles with asking Stacker for anything, let alone something as personal, let alone something he wants as badly as Chuck not finding out about the nature of his contract. 

...

Chuck doesn't call the Sunday before Christmas, and the day turns through Monday: when the chime for the airshuttle sounds over the house system, Herc comes into the great room, hesitates, but gets to his knees in the foyer. He straightens his shoulders, fixes his eyes on the door. He can't bring himself to hold his knees as far apart as Stacker wants, but when Stacker comes in, rain and wind and fog blow in with him. The city is subtropical and near the equator, but winter is still winter. It's four days before Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. 

...

Stacker comes home earlier from work, and Mako is there. On Tuesday night, after dinner, Stacker carries out from his study a game board and black and white stones. Stacker and Mako sit together on the floor at the coffee table and play; Herc kneels quietly behind and to Stacker's left, drowsing against the arm of the armchair. At the end, he wakes at the rattle of stones being put back into their wooden box. Stacker is standing, and Herc struggles up to his feet, a little disoriented from having been asleep, a little stiff from kneeling. 

Herc blinks at the steadying hand on his elbow, then up into the face above: Stacker looks unexpectedly kind, and Herc knows his face twists. Mako is a few steps down the hall, back to them, and would have the manners to pretend not to hear if Herc went to his knees at Stacker's feet to -- 

...

Mako and Stacker eat breakfast together. Instead of working his study after dinner, Stacker sits in the greatroom and talks with Mako. They like each other; the affection between them feels real and warm and substantive and attractive to Herc as -- 

On Wednesday, Stacker comes back late, office before the holidays, and Mako has eaten her dinner already: she chats with Stacker while he heats up his dinner, sits with Stacker while he eats alone at the dining room table. Herc was waiting for Stacker in the foyer on arrival, and Stacker hung up his coat and hat and umbrella, then gave Herc the rest of the night off: halfway through Stacker's dinner, Herc comes into the great room to get a glass of water, and he sees Stacker and Mako talking. Stacker looks up, but only for a moment, and Herc continues onto the kitchen. He gets his glass of water, has a mouthful, then empties the rest of the glass into the sink. 

He goes back to the greatroom -- Stacker and Mako are discussing something that Mako studied that afternoon in one of her textbooks, and Herc settles onto his knees next to Stacker.

If Stacker is surprised, he doesn't show it, but he does show that he is pleased: Stacker puts his hand over the back of Herc's neck and rubs large, soothing circles with his thumb. 

His conversation with Mako doesn't falter by so much as a syllable. 

...

Herc still can't bring himself to ask Stacker not to tell Mako, but that night, while kneeling next to Stacker in his bedroom, Herc asks, quietly, carefully if Mako knows her father's contractor has a child at the Academy. 

"I haven't told her," Stacker says, just as quietly, just as carefully. "If you don't want me to, I won't." 

Stacker sounds tired, but Herc feels light-headed through with relief: that night, he goes back to his quarters without having done anything more than kneel next to Stacker while Stacker got ready for bed and laid out his clothes for the morning. 

...

Even while terrified, Herc was proud: his child and Angela's, at school with children like Mako and doing better than almost all of them. After Stacker gives his word, that small, bright point blooms. Herc likes Mako, admires her seriousness, warms to the way she treats Stacker with obvious love and respect and how, simultaneously, she doesn't presume with Herc. She doesn't expect him to do things for her. She doesn't press him with questions. 

"Would you like lunch?" Herc asks Mako on Thursday. 

He is standing at the end of the dining table while she works at the other end. Mako looks up. She smiles, and says that she would, so Herc heats the food, while Mako gets knives and forks from the drawers. They sit together at the table and eat -- it's the first time that Herc has sat at a table with another person in over three months, and it feels strange to be at this table and use his hands and utensils; it feels odd to look someone in the face and not have it be Stacker. 

To make conversation, Herc asks Mako about things around the house. The scroll in the foyer of a crane and a mountain, the oddly shaped stone on a stand in the garden. 

...

Herc loves Chuck so much, even if it isn't always easy. 

...

Stacker and Mako go away on the day of Christmas proper and come back after Boxing Day. A family friend, Mako says to Herc. It's the day before, and Mako rewards herself for getting through Chapter 7 in her physics book by having hot cocoa, and Herc helps by getting the tin down from a high kitchen shelf. Mako proposes to make it in the heater, but Herc gets a pot out and makes it with milk. 

...

Herc spent years on active duty, earning the extra hazard pay, carrying a gun and wearing a combat suit. Scott came to the same unit three years after, and what did they get deployed to do? Dirty work. They didn't provide security or act as a neutral, peacekeeping force in settled areas, mediating trading house disputes. Instead, they were boots deployed to secure resource lines and pacify rebellious Slums: join the Forces and see the world through a gun scope or riot shield. Dangerous work, but Herc was used to it. What else did he know? They were lucky enough to have good equipment and decent commanders. 

Herc remembers the Christmas before Angela died: last Christmas she'd ever have, and he spent it on deployment on the other side of the world, fighting with her by time-zone delayed voicemail about how she was spoiling Chuck. She said his son was growing up without knowing his father. Herc said that she knew he was Forces when she married him, and how did she think the nice apartment in a Tower paid for itself? 

Angela doesn't respond, but Herc calls home on two days later after what, for him, is dinner. He gets Chuck, sleepy on the vidlink, saying that they're packing up to go to grandma and grandpa's for Christmas. Angela comes on, and sitting in a place where December means _snow_ and Christmas means _cold weather_ , Herc finds that he doesn't know what to say to his wife that he hasn't seen, in the flesh, in nine months. She is wearing a sleeveless dress, and her hair is pulled back. It has the shiny gold quality Herc associates with summer and hot sunlight. 

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I'm not," Angela replies, smiling even though it looks like she might be crying a little, "but I still love you." 

...

What does Herc send Chuck for Christmas? Letters and calls are limited, but seasonal and birthday packages of permissible materials are allowed. Herc goes over the list of approved gifts carefully, over and over. He settles on a top-quality personal audio player, along with a gift card loaded with credit for purchasing content through Chuck's school terminal. It comes with headphones and a charger, and Herc adds a few more practical things, all shipped directly from the manufacturer, with gift receipts. Two extra sets of sheets for Chuck's dormitory bed, so Chuck won't have to do laundry as frequently. More laundry detergent, because Chuck mentioned on a call that the stuff sold in the bursary wasn't very good. More for Chuck's bursary account. A few other small things. 

...

Chuck doesn't call the Sunday before Christmas, but on Christmas day itself and Boxing Day, too, Herc is alone in the house and trying to keep himself from self-pity. He runs himself to exhaustion in the gym twice a day and washes off in the shower by the gym; it's after dark when he goes back to his quarters and sees the message indicator on his terminal. The introductory header signals that it's from an automated circulation reminder account at the Academy, which puzzles Herc, and the tag at the end says REPLIES TO THIS ACCOUNT ARE NOT CHECKED; DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. But then the message says that there is an audio attachment. Herc frowns and punches play, and -- 

Herc goes still. 

...

How long is the message? Fifteen seconds, if even. Chuck talks quickly, in a low voice. Little time, librarian stepped out, sorry missed on Sunday, went to an extra engineering lab session, lost track of time. Package came, crackers great, audio player works a treat. 

Pause. An awkward sound. 

Merry Christmas. 

Then, there is a clatter. The file ends with a fuzz of static. 

...

By turning the audio all the way up and pressing his ear to the speaker, Herc works out that the librarian came back; the clatter is Chuck dropping tablets on top of the terminal to hide the fact he'd volunteered to spend his Christmas helping process overdue notices for one reason and one reason only.


	11. Chapter 11

Two notable things happen in the first month of the new year. 

First, Herc visits Chuck at the Academy. 

Second, Herc willfully disobeys Stacker.

....

The visit takes logistical planning. Time. Stacker's permission, because Herc is on a whole risk contract for ten years, and he has been limited to Stacker's house for almost four months. From the Tower where Stacker lives, travel to the Academy takes three and a half hours each way traveling by a combination of public airtrain and airbus. Herc has entered the addresses, weighed the various options. Does he want to take the route with the shortest travel time, but where he might easily miss a connection and lose half of his visiting time? Does he want to go for the longer, but surer route, which would take close to five hours? He would have to leave early in the morning, and it would take the whole day. Stacker might be going to visit Mako, so he might not care. 

Herc sends an inquiry to the agency. Is Stacker required to let him go to visiting day at the Academy? What about days off? 

His account manager at the agency writes back. _Your contract does not require Mr. Pentecost to give you time off during your term of service. See Section 8(c), which has language on communication with family members, including your son._ Herc pulls up his copy of the contract and reads Section 8(c) carefully, reads it again, and types and sends a message. What does _commercially reasonable_ mean? 

In response, the manager says that if Herc is uncertain as to his rights, he should consult a lawyer. Did he retain one prior to entering into the contract? Now that he is under contract, he'll need Mr. Pentecost's written permission to hire someone. The manager also reminds Herc that he had an opportunity to negotiate for a specific right to visitation, but chose not to do so. 

Sitting at the terminal, thinking about having to go to his knees and ask very humbly for permission to see Chuck, explain why he would like to have the day off -- 

An angry noise fills Herc's head. His hands feel cold. 

...

Instead, Stacker brings it up. It's Wednesday morning, and they're in Stacker's dressing area. Herc is doing the buttons on Stacker's shirt sleeves. 

"Mako is on the Green visitation schedule," Stacker says as Herc finishes the last button on the right wrist. "I'll be gone all of Sunday." 

Sometimes, Stacker has Herc do the buttons on both sleeves, holding his arm out and watching Herc bring each one through each hand-stitched buttonhole, mouth open with concentration, but today, after Herc finishes with Stacker's right, Stacker starts to do the left ones himself. It's a signal, so Herc goes back into the walk-in closet and brings the black oxfords that Stacker laid out the night before. Stacker sits; Herc kneels. 

Stacker watches him loosen the laces. 

"What weekend does Chuck have?" 

"Orange, sir," Herc says, having the excuse of a job in hand to avoid looking Stacker in the face. 

"Sunday after next?"

"Yes, sir." 

"Put the shoe down and look at me," Stacker says, and Herc's face comes up, red in the cheeks, because he knows he's been caught trying to avoid eye contact. To reinforce for Herc that it's better, more comfortable, if he meets expectations on his own, Stacker puts two fingers underneath Herc's chin and tilts his face up past the natural angle. Herc goes a little redder, but lets Stacker do it. 

"You want to see Chuck," Stacker says. 

Herc swallows hard. "Yes, sir." 

"How would you get to the Academy?"

Herc flushes, and Stacker doesn't move his fingers. "Airtrain and airbus, sir."

"How long would that take?"

"Maybe five hours each way," Herc says, and there is a creeping, cautious eagerness in his voice. Stacker wants to encourage that, so he doesn't let it sit. He doesn't make Herc wait. 

"You can have Sunday off and every other visiting Sunday on Chuck's schedule after that," Stacker says. "I want you back by evening, but the day is yours." 

Herc is blinking and breathing fast, but his eyes are still on Stacker, and Stacker takes his hand away from Herc's chin and puts it into Herc's hair and pulls Herc's face against his thigh -- Herc's lower back and all of his thighs ache from kneeling next to Stacker's bed all night, and he holds still while Stacker runs his hands through Herc's hair, four months from the haircut that the agency gave him. 

This long, it tends to curliness, which surprised Stacker, but he likes it. 

"If you would like," Stacker says, "you may cut your hair. There's probably a barber shop open on Sunday near the airtrain station."

Herc's voice is slightly muffled against Stacker's leg. "Yes, sir,"

Stacker counts to thirty, slowly, inside his head, and before he lets go of Herc, so that they can finish dressing him, he turns Herc's face upwards again. Then, he deliberately touches his fingers to the corners of Herc's mouth. 

That morning, Stacker put his come into Herc's mouth, and had him hold it on his tongue, without swallowing, while Stacker showered. 

...

Stacker won't make Herc have to ask to see his son. He won't make Herc thank him for it. 

On the other hand, he'll make Herc ask if he wants to get a drink of water or rinse his mouth out after holding Stacker's come. Herc isn't to the point where he'll thank Stacker for it, but he'll be there eventually. In the meantime, Stacker will make Herc look at him when he doesn't want to, verbalize when Herc would rather take a beating than come up with words. 

He'll reinforce, gently, the idea that Herc doesn't get so much as a haircut without Stacker's permission. 

...

At the base of his throat, Herc wears a collar loaded with technology under a continuous, brushed aluminum shell. It went on the night before Herc's delivery, and the agency standard is to remove it at the end of the last day of service. In negotiations, Stacker's lawyers went back and forth with counsel for the agency. Was the collar necessary? Mr. Pentecost objected to it on a number of grounds, ranging from aesthetic to security and privacy. Yes, it was necessary. The agency screened all contractors carefully, but could not guarantee continuous service without it, particularly if Mr. Pentecost was refusing even basic loyalty cues. It could perhaps be obtained in a different color or with a different covering material, if that was the -- 

What if Mr. Pentecost was willing to assume the risk of escape? 

Unfortunately, the agency needed to have assurances in order to protect both Mr. Pentecost and his contractor. It removed the temptation for clients to install their own aftermarket shock collars, a practice that had resulted in significant agency loss. Simultaneously, it protected the client. Again, the agency screened contractors carefully, but it could not guarantee Mr. Pentecost's safety in the event of contractor hostility without the collar. 

It was an insurance requirement for the safety of both sides. 

In the end, Stacker's counsel manages to get the agency to agree to reduce the mandatory term of usage, with an option for Mr. Pentecost, after six years, to -- 

...

On his personal tablets, while Herc is wearing the agency collar, Stacker can pull up biometric information: heart rate, blood pressure, VO2, and more if Stacker wants. It tracks Herc's location down to which side of the foyer Herc is kneeling on before Stacker opens the door. If Stacker wants, he can turn on audio, and he can hear what Herc hears. Stacker can also turn on video and see what Herc sees. 

The agency calls it _comprehensive wraparound service_. 

The day that Herc arrives, the sky is gray, and Stacker meets the agency airshuttle at the landing pad. The first person off is the delivery coordinator, dressed in a neat suit with a silk scarf tucked her neck in agency colors that match her agency badge. She smiles when she sees Stacker with his tablet in hand -- after he signs and puts his thumbprint to acknowledge delivery, she can show Stacker the basics of working the collar from the application Jaeger security cleared for installation on his tablet. She says that it's a short presentation. May they go inside? 

Stacker tells her that if it's short, they can do it outside. She blinks at him, but gives way. He is, after all, the client. 

Consequently, after Stacker signs, after Stacker runs his eyes over Hercules Hansen and confirms out loud for the record that this is, indeed, visually the person that he is contracting with -- Stacker signs and puts his thumbprint in the appropriate places. Then, they stay outside on the landing pad. The agency coordinator shows Stacker the various screens and how he can arrange the biometric data on his screen the way he wants. Here is how he turns on the audio feed, she says, moving her fingers to show him. 

"See?" she says, and Stacker hears her once with his ears, and another time over the speakers from the tablet. "And if I go like this -- " she says, moving her fingers a few more times. 

Stacker looks down at the tablet and sees the video feed: two figures standing on a landing pad, the wind blowing a little, and he moves his eyes from the tablet and looks over at Hercules -- _Herc_ , the file says. He hasn't opened his mouth, and there is a part of Stacker that wants to make Herc say something. He likes hearing Herc's voice. He wants to know what it takes to make Herc Hansen verbally expressive. 

The delivery coordinator clears her throat. 

"Would you like to see the control mechanism?" she asks, and Stacker turns to look back at her and the tablet. She takes this as a _yes_ and pulls up the tab from the left side of the screen. 

"Would you like to try it out? We can start with a relatively small charge, so that you can have an idea of its effect and work our way from there. That way, you'll know what to expect at various strengths." 

There is, Stacker sees, a continuum in the strength of the electrical shocks that the collar will deliver, starting at what Stacker assumes would be enough to be slightly unpleasant all the way up through a grayed-out zone flagged as CONFIRMATION NECESSARY, probably because those levels of _control_ risk permanent damage or death. There is, he understands, also a vocal failsafe he can use if he doesn't have access to his tablet, and Stacker looks down at the bottom of the screen, where they've set up a ticker line for Herc's heart rate. He sees the sharp upward spike that probably correlates with the delivery coordinator suggesting, in that pleasant, helpful voice, that they give Herc Hansen an electrical shock for the sole purpose of Stacker getting comfortable with doing so. 

_Work our way up from there._ No wonder she wanted to go inside. 

Stacker waits to see if Herc Hansen is going to say anything. 

He doesn't. Sometime after turning on the audio feed, but before the discussion of the _control mechanism_ , Herc put his duffle bag down and has gone to standing with his hands tucked behind his back, and knees apart. Jaeger is a major developer and manufacturer of arms, and the Security Forces are a major client. Stacker recognizes elements of the way Herc Hansen is standing. It isn't quite attention, and it isn't quite parade rest, but eighteen years of life in the Security Forces show in the flat line of Herc's shoulders and the way the arms are set at ninety degrees to them. His eyes are far, far away, over the side of the Tower, past the force shield, ready to take an electric shock from his collar if that's how he was going to start his service, if that's what it took to keep his son at the Academy. 

If they _worked their way up_ with the audio and video from Herc's collar running, what would Stacker see on the tablet? Slow pan, tilt, and fall when the current went high enough to take Herc's legs out from under him? 

He turns back to the delivery coordinator, and the expression on his face makes her take a step backwards. 

She leaves. Stacker takes Herc into the house. 

...

The world is a hard place, and in many ways, Herc is lucky. The man he signs a contract with doesn't electrocute him on the landing pad to _get comfortable_. Instead, Stacker takes him inside. Stacker talks to him. Stacker makes it clear, before and after Herc signs the contract, what he expects and what he wants. Stacker even makes sure that Herc sees a copy of Stacker's detailed sexual profile: unusual in an agency placement. 

...

Years later, Stacker and Herc are out at a party in a private home, and Herc will watch a contractor get put on the dining table. Dishes are pushed away. A candelabra is moved. He looks young enough to be one of Chuck's classmates at the Academy, and he is naked from the waist down and flushed everywhere from maintenance doses of aphrodisiacs. The client who owns him wants to show off a party trick. The higher she turns up the current, the more frightened the boy becomes, but the more aroused, too. Expensive, she says, but worth every penny of what she paid his agency. 

_Watch_ , she says. 

Stacker walks out, disgusted, and Herc's hands shake as he helps Stacker into his coat: they're in the entrance area, and they can hear noises that could be delight, that could be screaming, that could be sobbing. 

...

Some loyalty cues mimic the chemical profile of love. 

Others cues affect verbal centers. There was an option, for example, on a ten year, whole-risk contract for Stacker to remap Herc's neural pathways, so that every time Herc intended to say _no_ to Stacker, it would come out of his mouth as _yes, thank you, sir_. 

...

Stacker specifically requests an absence of loyalty or remap cues. He wants the man that he met in the interview room, and he never interferes with Herc's ability to communicate with his son. He never tries to prohibit Herc from speaking to Chuck, and he knows that Herc will struggle and almost be constitutionally incapable, at this point, of asking in the correct form for time away, if he might be allowed to travel to visit Chuck. So Stacker tells Herc. He is allowed. He can have the day off. He can cut his hair, so that with his son, he can pretend to be a security contractor and not a man who earns his living and his son's tuition on his knees. 

What else matters? Within those parameters, how much can Stacker -- 

...

On his scheduled day, Stacker goes to visit Mako by airshuttle. 

On his scheduled day, Herc goes to visit Chuck. 

A week later, Stacker has a three-day business trip to the collective of Towers known as Los Angeles, and he leaves Herc at home with instructions, unchallenging and meant mostly to keep Herc in the right mindset: kneel by the door for half an hour at six o' clock in the evening, shirt off, hands behind him. 

... 

He doesn't do it even a single night Stacker is away. 

When Stacker comes back, Herc takes one look at Stacker's face and knows where he stands.


	12. Chapter 12

Stacker steps away: his travel bag is still by the door, and so is Herc. Stacker is still wearing his topcoat, but when he comes back, his gloves are in the right pocket of his coat. 

He has a pair of leather suspension cuffs in his right hand. 

...

They're four months in, and the first time Stacker uses restraints on Herc is relatively wordless and straightforward: all this time, Stacker hasn't so much as used his body weight to hold Herc down. He didn't tie Herc down for his first beating from Stacker or any of the ones that came after; they both know that Herc has difficulty articulating and using words to tell Stacker how and what and why. Generally, Herc will makes the effort because he understands expectations, but he also understands just how much trouble he is in. He can see the expression on Stacker's face. 

Even before that, Herc felt the prickle of fear and guilt, felt it double the second night before telling himself that if he was in trouble, he might as well be in trouble proper, and spent the last night -- 

Out of the corner of his eye, Herc sees the cuffs in Stacker's hands. 

When asked, he holds his wrists out, but doesn't say _yes, sir_. He keeps his eyes fixed on the door behind Stacker. 

...

Set into the wall next to the door to the kitchen from the great room, just high to pull Herc onto the balls of his feet, is a hook. 

Herc passes it every time he fixes himself a meal or carries dirty dishes back to wash; he sees it in the morning while kneeling next to Stacker at the breakfast table. There is a similar one in the foyer for the scroll of the crane and the mountain. There is another in the hallway holding up a glass case with a beautifully woven length of sky-blue silk shot through with gold thread. Herc has had four months trapped inside the limits of a large house, and he has refused to go through the study or Stacker's bedroom in detail, even though Stacker has never articulated instructions saying that Herc wasn't to do it -- some part of Herc knows that Stacker would probably be pleased if Herc showed curiosity or interest in him, so Herc resists. Refuses. 

Herc is on his knees in the foyer, and the cuffs are on. 

Stacker tests the rings on the sides of the cuffs to make sure they hold and move freely, then runs his hands over the cuffs themselves to make sure they're secure and not too tight. 

"Up," he says, and eyes still fixed on the door, Herc stands.

Stacker has, at normal times, at least an inch or two on Herc in height. Stacker is also in shoes, the tailored slacks and dress shirt that he wears at home after a day at work. Herc is barefoot in track pants and the shirt that he slept in: Herc sets his jaw, refuses to make eye contact. Stacker takes two steps out of the foyer towards the great room, and Herc knows he is supposed to follow, preferably with his wrists still out in front of him and held together like Stacker left them. 

Herc puts his hands down by his sides and doesn't move.

Stacker has to double back and half-drag Herc across the room, using the cuffs as leverage. 

...

"Hands above your head," Stacker says. 

Herc looks at Stacker for a moment, then up at the hook, but goes up on the balls of his feet. He even raises his hands over his head, and Stacker guides the D-rings over the hook, then grips Herc's forearms and pulls down a little, making sure that both the cuffs and hook are secure. 

Then:

"Lift your legs," Stacker says. Herc hesitates, not sure why Stacker is asking. Stacker doesn't explain, and eventually, in the utter silence and stillness of the house, when Stacker doesn't so much as take his eyes away from Herc’s face, Herc realizes that Stacker wants to make sure that the hook and cuffs will hold Herc if all of his weight is on them. 

So Herc raises his knees up, using his thighs, and his back curves away from the wall. It's uncomfortable, and having to concentrate on keeping his legs off the ground means Herc reverts to old habits: his eyes fix on Stacker's face, and Herc has to shove down the -- he refuses to put words on the physical sensation that shoots through him from stomach to the middle of his chest. Heat and shame and more heat and a horrible shortness of breath. There is a miserable moment when Herc thinks he might pant out words, but the moment passes, and Herc watches Stacker's face go hard again.

In fact, it goes hard enough that Herc braces his stomach muscles in case he’s up against the wall for a beating: there isn't anything in Stacker's hands now, but he could get something. Alternatively, he could just use his bare hands. Herc has learned how much they can hurt, and he can guess that Stacker knows how to use them for further pain: angry for reasons he can barely articulate and refuses to admit, even to himself, Herc fixes his eyes on the skylights above. The light is soft, natural, and there are designs etched into the glass that Herc tries to trace with his eyes.

Stacker puts his hands on Herc's forearms again to test the cuffs and hook one more time with Herc's feet off the ground,; and also, to make sure that the cuffs aren't cutting off circulation. Herc’s stomach lurches with nerves as Stacker’s breath puffs over his neck, warm and damp.

Then, Stacker walks away. 

...

It's mid-morning. Nine, maybe. Nine-thirty. 

...

It's late morning. There is a line of sweat down Herc's back, and his calves are starting to cramp. 

Hanging by the opening between the kitchen and the part of the great room used for dining, Herc can look over the end of the dining table, across the seating area, and into the hallway that leads the private part of the house: four months inside the house and the garden above. Herc can call up the memory of how the floor feels under his feet, how many steps it takes to get to the bedrooms and Stacker's study. Turn left for the guest bedroom that is Mako's room when she is home. Right for Stacker's bedroom. The hallway is at the far end, set by itself. 

If Herc strains his eyes, he can make out the shape of the study door. It's open, he thinks. Just a little. He thinks he can hear the clock chiming for noon. 

...

Early afternoon, Stacker comes out for lunch. He is working in the study, Herc thinks. All the signs are right. His sleeves are rolled up, and there is the slight, small turn that Stacker's mouth has when he has been concentrating. There is an indent in Stacker's right arm from where he rests it against the desk while reading, and on his way to the kitchen for lunch, Stacker stops by Herc, still hanging from the wall.

"Is there something you want to say?" Stacker asks.

Herc's throat feels dry, tight from thirst, and he knows that he is panting. Panting distracts him the pain in his feet and legs and starting in his shoulders, but it also dries out the inside of his mouth. 

But no, Herc doesn't have anything to say to Stacker. He shakes his head, so Stacker keeps on going into the kitchen, and Herc listens to Stacker heat up his lunch, smells the food. Hears the opening and closing of the cupboard, the faucet run, where Stacker pours himself a glass of water and drinks it down, then gets a little more to take back to his study. 

Stacker walks past, lunch and drink on a tray, without looking at Herc.

...

His feet hurt and his calves hurt and his ankles are sore and his shoulders burn. Herc tries to bring his heels against the wall, so that he can shift the weight of his body to his arms and thighs, but can't maintain it. It's more than pain and thirst on an empty stomach. Herc knows that when -- when, he thinks, not if -- Stacker lets him down, he is going to have to talk. He tries to line up answers because Stacker is going to ask, but in the fog of pain and thirst and humiliation, Herc can only articulate that he didn't want to. It made him feel cold and angry to think about kneeling in the foyer without anyone there. So he didn't. 

And he kept on not doing it, even though it left him miserable. 

Herc can't put his finger on why remembering that makes him angry, but it does. 

...

Stubbornness and anger carry Herc for hours, but when the sun is most of the way down the sky, Stacker comes out of his study a second time. He has a tray with his lunch dishes on it. As he passes by, Herc says, with a voice that is strained with dryness, _I'm sorry._

Stacker ignores him and passes into the kitchen. 

The dishes go into the dishwasher; he empties the crumbs from the tray into the sink, then wipes down the sink. Herc hears the faucet put on for the kettle, then the bubble of the kettle on the heater. It takes two minutes for water to boil in that kettle, and from the number of cabinets that open and close, Herc can guess that Stacker is making the black tea, not the green complicated stuff. Refrigerator opening confirms that, and Herc tries not to make noise while Stacker stirs the milk and sugar in. Open a tin for biscuits. Put the spoon into the sink. Wipes down crumbs. 

He comes back out, mug in hand, plate in the other hand with biscuits, and Herc knows it will be hours until Stacker wants his dinner. 

Desperate, Herc calls after him, _Please_ and _I can make it up to you , sir_

...

For this world, Stacker is a good man. He knows. It isn't a coincidence that Herc will take beatings, kneel until his knees are bruised, and endure the humiliation of being trained, step by slow step, to suck Stacker's dick because nothing in his sexual history indicates he'll do it with the skill or technique that Stacker expects -- and then, a week after being reminded there is a world outside the house, after seeing his son and getting to make his own choices for twelve hours, he'll defy Stacker over kneeling in an empty foyer.

Still, because he is a good man, Stacker doesn't strip Herc of the right to visit his son or talk to him once a week: he would, he knows, have a plausible argument for doing so. Herc is entitled to commercially reasonable access to his son, but what is reasonable for a contractor who won't comply with basic commands, clearly given and expected? 

But Stacker never raises loss of access, not even to tell Herc that Herc gets to keep it. He wants Herc to know it isn't even on the table. In fact, there is a part of Stacker that would be disappointed if Herc offered it. 

Instead, he expects Herc to make it up in other ways. 

...

"I should have knelt."

Herc doesn't want to say the words, but he says them anyways. His thighs won't support his weight yet, and after so many hours held above his head, his hands won't obey him and hang at his sides. He presses them to the floor, palms down, but they twitch at the wrists. His mouth is dry, and Stacker hasn't offered him a drink of water. Herc hasn't asked for one. 

"You should have," Stacker says, and Herc guiltily jerks his face back up to look Stacker in the face. "Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to."

"You didn't want to?"

There is something in Stacker's voice that makes Herc want to crawl forward and press his face to the inside of Stacker's trousered knee: Herc's brain supplies what the fabric would feel like, what it would feel like to breathe against Stacker's knee. That same part of his mind supplies how much Stacker would like that, how Stacker would like watching Herc drag himself over the feet in between them. It would be awkward, because Herc's body isn't obeying him, but Stacker would like that. Stacker might reach down to touch his collar and stroke the back of his neck. 

The rest of Herc's mind comes to the idea of taking comfort for that and refuses point blank. In order to get the words out before shame and anger and pride keep him from saying them, Herc blurts out before he is ready, _Please_ and _you weren't here, sir_. 

He lets his arms go down from under him, so that his cheek knocks against the marble floor. There'll be a bruise there in the morning, but Herc repeats himself, adding _I won’t do it again_ for good measure. 

...

Stacker tells Herc to stay on the floor by the hook, then goes into the other part of the house. He comes back with options: single tail, cane, or paddle. Between prior strain and current adrenaline, Herc's thighs won't support him well enough to kneel appropriately, so Stacker lays them down on the table and brings each one down in turn for Herc to look at. The single tail looks like the one used to give Herc his last beating before being booted from the Force; the cane is heavier than the usual, with a curve at one end that fits snugly over Stacker's palm. 

Herc picks the paddle. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir," Herc asks, eyes on Stacker's face. His throat hurts from talking while it's so dry, and for a pain-and-adrenaline blurred moment, Her thinks that Stacker is going to make him say why he picked the paddle.

This time, Stacker doesn't. 

....

The paddle is heavy and stiff, made out of a tight-grained wood that Herc doesn't recognize. In Stacker's hands, laid hard against Herc's ass and the back of his thighs, it comes down with enough force to make sitting uncomfortable for days. For almost two weeks afterwards, Herc's night time attendance in Stacker's bedroom involves stripping below the waist and lying face-down on the sheets while Stacker runs his palms over Herc's legs to check on progress. New bruises come; old bruises turn yellow and green and spread down Herc's legs. After inspection, Herc spreads his legs and lets Stacker, palm slick with lube, reach under and jerk him off. 

Eventually, they progress so that Herc is on his back and looking Stacker in the eyes while it happens. 

...

Later, Herc learns: in the great room, with the afternoon sun on the walls and a miserable mix of pain and fear and regret and fear filling up his chest and tingling in his fingers, the correct answer would have been to ask Stacker to use whichever one he thought Herc deserved.


	13. Chapter 13

Six months in, Stacker hasn't given Herc instructions about masturbation: the terminal in Herc's quarters will show pornographic content. One afternoon, it's raining hard enough that Herc doesn't want to sit on the rooftop, and he turns on the video screen in the great room. There are thousands of channels, and Herc flips through, bored, until he comes across a channel showing two naked women kissing in a bed. One of them has brown hair; the other is a blonde. Both of them are half-dressed, and Herc watches them undress each other rest of the way. There is kissing and stroking, hazy shots of bare breasts and thighs. Arousal manifests as a pool of warmth at the bottom of Herc's stomach. 

Then, the blonde kisses the throat of the brunette and suggests that her contractor join them. 

Herc turns the screen off. 

...

For two weeks, his evening work involves the usual of kneeling in the foyer, kneeling next to Stacker while he eats dinner, and then keeping Stacker company during evening work or relaxation. 

During that period, though, the end of the night also involves taking his trousers off on command and getting on Stacker's bed. Stacker shows Herc the appropriate way to hold himself for inspection -- hands and knees, with his knees apart at shoulder width, so that Stacker has plenty of room to run his hands over Herc and check the bruises. Stacker doesn't mind Herc trying to twist around to look at him; he makes a point of never discouraging Herc from taking an interest in what he is doing, but Herc is supposed to keep his knees still. Usually, Herc looks straight ahead at the wall on the other side of the bed. He keeps an eye on the bruises in the mirror in his quarters and knows that they are big and ugly, having started as dense blue-black masses that spread and moved downwards as clouds of green and purple and yellow. They are large. They are ugly. They are there, and he is reminded of them at least half a dozen times every day in normal movement. 

Also, he knows what comes after inspection: the moment when Stacker steps away. The bottle of lube in the nightstand next to the bed, and the sound of Stacker pushing down on the pump-top. One pump is the standard. 

Two means that Stacker is going to take his time and make Herc into a mess. 

...

Herc is good at holding still while having bruises handled, and he learns how he supposed to take Stacker's hand getting him off. There are small adjustments he is supposed to make when they transition from inspection to training, the largest being that Herc is to spread his legs a little wider than his shoulders, so that more of his weight is on his arms. 

Stacker likes the way that looks, sometimes even pushes Herc's face down so that his cheek is against the sheets and his ass is raised. 

"Stay there," Stacker will say, then adjusting Herc so that his legs a little, so that his ass is even higher. 

Herc remembers the way that he'd begged while hanging on the wall by the kitchen: _please_ and _I'll make it up to you, sir_.

Through the blur of adrenaline and apprehension and something else that he can't think about, Herc tries. 

...

In the beginning, he doesn't come easily, if at all. He doesn't like the feeling of having his ass in the air and being vulnerable and exposed and humiliated, but by trial and error and lube, Stacker learns the light strokes that work to get Herc hard. He finds out just how much running his fingertips over Herc's foreskin will do: light touches are generally better than heavy strokes, but if Stacker waits until Herc is fully hard before closing his hand around Herc's dick tightly, Herc sometimes gets off spectacularly, pumping himself out against Stacker's hand and making rapid, small noises with his eyes shut and face tight with concentration. 

One night, halfway through the post-inspection handjob, Stacker pulls away. 

"Turn over," Stacker says, and awkwardly, dick partially hard against his thigh, Herc does. His hands are clenched into fists. 

"Keep your eyes on me," Stacker says, and Herc realizes that on turning over, he screwed his eyes shut. While on his hands and knees, face turned towards the sheets, he'd been trying to call up every arousing image he could while still keeping -- he didn't want to -- 

On his back with instructions to keep his eyes open, keeping from thinking about Angela is easier. 

On the other hand, he has to fight to keep his eyes on Stacker: Herc loses his hard-on, but Stacker accepts that and calmly gets more lube from the nightstand. Herc has enough baseline attraction to men that Stacker knows it's a function of pride and Herc's feelings about his contract, displaced onto Stacker as a person. 

Consequently, it's personal, but also something Stacker is willing to work Herc through. 

...

After the handjob, Stacker tells Herc to get down. Sometimes, he dismisses Herc for the night. Other times, Stacker will put his hand on his belt, if he is wearing trousers, or on the waistband if he is wearing track pants. Stacker is always hard after getting Herc off, but doesn't always suggest that Herc get him off: they work on Herc coming while on his back, looking at Stacker. They work on Herc asking, face and shoulders blushing red, if he may serve Stacker. 

Every time, the words tend to stick in Herc's throat and mouth, and Herc learns the first more easily than the second.

...

Nevertheless, over weeks, in sessions by Stacker's bed, Herc learns how to use his mouth on Stacker's dick. Stacker doesn't always want the same thing out of a blow job. Sometimes, he wants to fuck Herc's mouth, and Herc learns that even if that is the case, there are times when Stacker wants to concentrate on the feeling of moving his dick over Herc's lips and tongue. Other times, he wants Herc to straighten his neck and shoulders and take it in the throat. Occasionally, Stacker will change his mind or decide he wants something else halfway through: other times, he means it from the start. 

Herc learns to breathe deeply and try to get his lips wet at the beginning. When he is kneeling by Stacker at dinner, if Stacker offers him water to drink, Herc learns that he should take it. 

...

Sometimes, Stacker wants to lean back and relax, and Herc finds out the steady, deep motions of his mouth that work to suck Stacker off. Herc learns that if his jaw is tired, there is a polite way for him to ask if he might use his hands or touch Stacker's balls or perineum. After he does and gets permission, there are things he is supposed to do and things he is supposed to avoid: Stacker also likes to have his balls licked, and if Stacker cups his balls and holds them out towards Herc, Herc is to take them into his mouth and be very, very careful with his teeth. 

Stacker likes making eye contact. Stacker likes it slow, and sometimes, he will pull Herc off his dick and have Herc, mouth wet and sloppy from blowing him, make eye contact. 

"Hold still," Stacker says, his hand stroking over the back of Herc's neck. He touches the soft hairs across Herc's shoulders, then the short, sharp-feeling ones by the ears and over the back of Herc's neck now that he is getting haircuts once a month. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Herc can see Stacker's hardon going down, and when Stacker takes his hands away and Herc can go back to work again -- without knowing it, Herc makes a small noise of eagerness in his throat before coming forward on his knees. 

...

Sometimes, after his evening time with Stacker, Herc gets dismissed to his quarters. Other times, he sucks Stacker off, then is dismissed. 

Still other times, at least a night or two each week, Stacker wants Herc kneeling by his bed through the night. 

He keeps a kneeling pad at hand, a thick square of cotton and padding that won’t entirely stop knees from going numb over the course of a few hours. Herc learns that if he's been kneeling by the bed at night, then after Stacker's alarm goes off, he should slide up into bed and make his way down to suck Stacker off. Proper form is doing it with his hands behind his back. Proper form also involves kissing the inside of Stacker's thigh before he touches his mouth to Stacker's dick. That way, Stacker can be as awake as he wants from start to finish. Does he want to put his hands in Herc's hair? Does he want to let Herc wake him up, slowly, with an orgasm? 

Herc can get into bed and slide under the sheets, but has difficulty with the other parts. He doesn't want to keep his hands behind him. He doesn't want to kiss any part of Stacker. To teach Herc to be comfortable with his hands behind his back, Stacker starts to cuff Herc before bed -- not the heavy suspension cuffs that are used for punishment, but instead, unthreatening black leather snap-on loops with a thin length of chain between them. Just enough to restrict movement without crossing the lines between training and punishment. 

Herc learns, blushing, that if he has been attending Stacker from the time Stacker came through the door, he can ask Stacker to use the bathroom before he is cuffed. 

...

"Please, sir," Herc learns to say. 

Stacker tells him to go and waits, sitting on the edge of the bed with the cuffs in his hand. 

When he comes back, Herc goes down to his knees, facing Stacker. 

"Turn around," Stacker says. 

Herc turns, still on his knees, with his wrists behind his back and lets Stacker cuff him. 

...

One morning, Herc sleeps through Stacker's alarm, and he wakes when hauled up by the collar and spread across the bed. His hands are cuffed behind him -- they've made progress from the training cuffs with the non-intimidating length of chain to a slightly sturdier pair held together by a carabiner. Stacker has his left hand over the back of Herc's collar, keeping him in place, and there is a pool of lube warming on the fingers of Stacker's right hand. 

"I'm going to put a finger inside you," Stacker says, taking firmer hold of Herc's collar. 

Herc turns his face into the sheets and tries not to whimper when Stacker reminds him to keep his knees apart. 

...

Herc learns --

...

Herc learns that sometimes, he'll wake up with a finger or two of Stacker's already pressing into him and Stacker's voice, low and steady, telling him that he is being good by being still and loose and easy around his fingers. Herc learns to spread his legs for Stacker before he is entirely awake. To encourage him, Stacker will sometimes take his hand off Herc's collar and stroke his dick. Other times, he'll let Herc press against his thigh, but the routine feels loose. Unstructured. 

As if Stacker doesn't have a goal in mind. 

One Saturday morning, Herc is aware, drowsily, of being pulled up on the bed. He knows that Stacker has put lube on his fingers, and he knows there are fingers going into him. Herc has learned to accept this as a common way to start his day: it doesn't hurt anymore, and the bed is blessedly warm after kneeling by Stacker's bed naked all night. Herc lifts up when Stacker touches a hand to Herc's hip, and Herc keeps his weight balanced on his shoulders and knees while Stacker gives Herc's dick a few strokes to get him hard. Herc breathes in the smell of the bed, the warmth, the smoothness of the sheets. He tries to relax under the hand on his collar, the fingers buried inside him. Flexes his fingers because the cuffs don't cut off circulation, but it's good to move his hands as much as he can. 

Stacker goes on stroking his dick and working his fingers inside Herc until -- 

Herc makes a noise into the sheets. 

Stacker will sometimes talk to him these morning sessions, asking him what he likes. Herc can occasionally get away with burying his face in the bed and not answering, and because Stacker wants Herc to associate these lazy, warm mornings with pleasure, wants Herc to like being put face-down and keeping his legs apart for Stacker, he doesn't usually push the point. 

The morning sessions aren't entirely about Herc verbalizing. 

...

Instead, Stacker keeps stroking Herc's dick, coming back whenever Herc starts to lose his hard-on from being finger-fucked alone. Stacker isn't moving his fingers in and out much, isn't even trying for the three he is starting to be able to put into Herc easily without too much preparation. He also keeps his touches to Herc's dick light, just enough to keep him hard -- there isn't a lot of lube on Herc's dick, but plenty inside him, and after Stacker's fingers make him whimper again, Herc tries to close his legs. Stacker hooks three fingers through the collar and tugs on his collar to remind him. Herc makes a noise and a visible effort to keep his legs apart, and Stacker rewards him by running his fingers along the length of Herc's dick, light, gentle,. 

They stay like that, Herc bent over Stacker's lap, ass up. It's Saturday morning. Herc has nowhere to go. Stacker doesn't either. 

...

If Herc tries to squirm away, Stacker takes him by the collar and hauls him back. 

If Herc tries to close his legs, Stacker tugs on his collar or puts a hand on the back of Herc's head to remind him to stay spread. 

The fingers inside Herc don't stop working inside him, slow and steady, gentle. Stacker stops for more lube at one point, and Herc has come before with fingers inside him, so he knows they can make him feel good in connection with a hand on his dick, knows that there is something Stacker does with his hand inside Herc that makes pleasure jolt up Herc's spine, but it's always been in conjunction with a hand on his dick. This time, the hand that Stacker puts on his dick is light and teasing, just enough to keep him hard. It's almost entirely the fingers inside him, and Herc buries his face against the bed. He tries to keep his body from rocking back against Stacker's hand, but can't. 

"Hold still," Stacker says, almost gently. "You're going to come for me."

They're the first words Stacker has said to Herc since giving him the orders to kneel by the bed at night, then turning out the lights. 

...

Stacker's fingers move inside Herc one more, two, six, a dozen more times. Stacker's hand is on the back of Herc's neck, holding him by the collar and not his dick, and Herc tries to twist away one more time, but Stacker hauls him back and takes his forearm to pin Herc in place while he finishes Herc, who is stubborn, who tries to fight it, who nevertheless comes trembling and shaking and gasping open-mouthed against the sheets, knees spread wide. He blinks rapidly and wetly, because he doesn't understand how it can possibly feel this good. 

...

Stacker doesn't tell Herc how he did it: instead, if Herc hasn't figured out by now that he's being trained to enjoy having his prostate touched, he has the resources look it up for himself.


	14. Chapter 14

In Stacker's bedroom, there is a wardrobe roughly as tall as Herc and made out of honey-colored wood. 

There is a main compartment with brass half-moon handles. Stacker has a separate dressing area and a walk-in closet where his suits and clothes and shoes are kept, but Herc assumes that Stacker has particularly valuable items of clothing in this wardrobe -- there is a small electronic lock on the front. Herc recognizes it as the kind unlocked by a thumbprint. It isn't the largest, strongest lock, but is enough to signal, to Herc, that it this is something Stacker values and keeps separate. Private, even within his bedroom. 

One night, he is kneeling by Stacker's bed. Herc expects that he is about to be turned over Stacker's knee and finger-fucked, but Stacker notices that the bottle of lube he keeps by the bed is lower than he'd like. Herc is naked below the waist, but he has his shirt and his collar. His hands are cuffed behind his back.

"Come to the wardrobe, but stay on your knees," Stacker says.

He has a hand on the back of Herc's collar, and Herc shuffles on his knees. He sees that Stacker opens the doors wardrobe doors without using the lock and inside --

Stacker pulls one of the drawers open, gets a new bottle of lubricant, and closes the drawer again. 

...

Stacker has never said a word to Herc about keeping out of his study or bedroom. He encourages Herc to take an interest in the person who owns him; he wants Herc to be engaged with the process. Moreover, he doesn't believe it’s necessary. Does he tell his chairs to keep out of the living room? Does he consider it an issue if the robots that keep the house clean dust his desk? He trusts Herc not to leave a mess. 

In Stacker's house, everything belongs to him. He owns what he owns.

...

Two days later, Herc gathers up his courage and goes into Stacker's bedroom: Stacker is at the office, but Herc understands the implied direction. Stacker wants Herc to know what is in the wardrobe; he wants Herc to seek it out of his own accord, but sooner rather than later, so Herc braces himself and walks into Stacker's bedroom without being explicitly told or without Stacker in it: it's mid-afternoon. The techglass along one side of the room is clear, and the day is sunny, so sunlight bathes the room. Through the glass, Herc can see the Peak dropping away and Towers lower down on the mountain, together with the curve of Victoria Harbor, sun glittering on the water. Herc tries not to come into this room without Stacker. 

Now, Herc looks at the intentionally bare walls, the wide bed, the gray concrete floor covered in most places by an expensive wool rug with old-fashioned designs in deep blue and red. He is wearing one of the long-sleeved shirts that Stacker brought home, in a lighter weight for the warmer part of the year, and track pants. 

He walks to the wardrobe, shoves down the hope that Stacker decided to lock the wardrobe after all, and opens the double cabinet doors. 

...

Herc recognizes some of the things in the cabinet. 

Coiled and hanging from a hook is the single-tail that Stacker had brought out the time Herc was on the wall. Next to it is a paddle that makes Herc wince just looking at it: he remembers that. There are cuffs, including the suspension ones that Herc knows from punishment, along with the light ones that Stacker eased him into. Coils of rope, both a smooth black kind and light brown stuff that prickles under Herc's hands. Hanging on the right side of cabinet are loops that Herc thinks, at first, are alternate collars. After lifting them off the hook and handling them, he realizes they're gags. The one in his hands has a rubber that would fit between his teeth, and there is another one hanging in the cabinet along the same lines, but instead of a bit, there is a ring that would leave force his mouth open for --

Herc puts that back quickly and closes the cabinet door.

There are four drawers underneath the cabinet doors. The first one has, as Herc remembers, lubricant. Plastic gloves. A long, large syringe that doesn't look like it would be fitted with a needle and is therefore a curiosity: Herc assumes it would maybe be used with the analgesic cream and antibiotic cream in separate tubes. There is a tidy, boxed first-aid kit, unwrapped but unused. Wipes. A spare insert for the kneeling pad that Stacker put down for Herc by his desk and by his bed. 

Spare batteries. Herc blinks.

The next one is too low for Herc to open easily while standing straight. Stubborn, Herc bends down, awkwardly, rather than kneeling. 

...

The second drawer is, Herc realizes, meant for him. The whole wardrobe is, but Herc looks down at the drawer and --

There are anal plugs. Herc recognizes those from his second round of intake interviews -- the agency staffer saw his face and took it for ignorance, so she called up examples on his screen. Front and central in the drawer are a set in a navy blue, starting from one narrower than two of Stacker's fingers to one that, at its widest point, is significantly wider than Stacker's dick. There are also dildoes, some in the same material and color as the plugs, but also a pair made out of clear glass. There are a series of sleek-looking objects that Herc guesses, correctly, are vibrators that use the batteries in the drawer above. 

After looking at them for a long, long moment, Herc shoves the drawer shut hard enough that the top of the cabinet rattles. 

He doesn't look in the third drawer, or the deep one down close to the ground that would require him to squat or get down on his knees. Instead, Herc spends the rest of the day in a stew of anger and resentment, directed at himself and at Stacker in equal measure.

After dinner, he gets beaten over the dining table because he resists being hand-fed. 

...

The canes are too tall to be kept in the wardrobe.

Instead, Stacker has a stand for them in his study, and he makes Herc leave the great room, go to his study, and come back with the usual one he gets beaten with for everyday infractions. Herc resents every step of the walk to Stacker's study and back; he resents that he knows which cane he is usually beaten with, and he resents Stacker's eyes on him while stripping down for his beating. There is a knot in his throat that feels like it is going to choke him, and while bent over the dining room table, Stacker's empty dinner dishes on the table in front of him, Herc gets beaten until he stops trying to bite back his noises, plus three more for having tried to be quiet when he didn't have the right to do so. 

...

Stacker bought the gags out of a general attitude towards preparation: what if, despite all expectation, Herc turned out to be a backtalker? 

In actuality, he has never used them on Herc. His difficulty with Herc is, if anything, the opposite.

...

The beating over the dining table is Herc's first in almost two months, and on Saturday night, Stacker tells Herc that he'll be away: a dinner out of the house, and he'll be back late, so Herc can take the rest of the night off and start his Sunday early. Consequently, Herc eats alone in the kitchen, standing at the counter, and passes by the great room without looking at the dining table. He goes to his quarters and starts to lay out his clothes for the following morning, but -- stops. Herc lays down the shirt in his hands. The discomfort from his beating is mostly gone; he can bear the five hours there and five hours back by public transit. He can walk normally, if a little stiffly. 

On the other hand, when Herc strips down and looks in the full-length mirror in his quarters, Herc can see the marks on him, laid out in regular intervals from the underside of his ass to an inch above his knee. There is a gap and break for his knees. The marks continue on the calf, two marks laid out over muscle, and he remembers when Stacker started at the top again and --

There are no windows in his quarters, and under the overhead lights, Herc studies the marks on his legs. 

His throat hurts.

...

Nevertheless.

In the morning, Herc wakes to his alarm. 

In the morning, Herc showers and dresses in the clothes he finished laying out the night before -- white shirt, tailored slacks, brown belt, good brown shoes. Three weeks before, Stacker brought home a tan-colored suit jacket for him, and the terminal tells Herc that outside, the weather is cool, but not cold. Herc takes the jacket, along with an umbrella from the stand at the door. Out by the airshuttle parking spot is a private, secure elevator down to the common areas of the Tower. As far as Herc can tell, Stacker has never used it, but the unit is programmed to identify Herc by biometric markers, and it lets him through.

Marks on his legs or not, strange as it feels to look someone across the space between them and not have it be Stacker --

...

"Really?"

Chuck shows him.

"You made that?"

"Put it together out of parts in the bin. Gotta learn circuitry before I build my own," Chuck says. At the Academy, all students take introduction to engineering, and the class has a practical component that takes place in a separate space, using separate facilities, than the classroom. The idea is novel to Herc, who remembers being bored to pointless in hour after hour in the classroom, watching educational remote presentations, and Chuck takes _Max_ out of a locking cubby labelled HANSEN, C. across the front in grease pencil. 

"Watch this," Chuck says and intentionally runs the robot off the edge of a lab table. The accelerometer inside correctly senses that it's in free-fall and makes most of the rotation required to reorient itself for landing, but can't manage the rest. It hits the ground and bounces, two wheels stuck whirring in the air. Chuck flushes with embarrassment and goes to the robot, muttering under his breath and trying to explain that it works perfectly all the time. Most of the time. Sometimes. 

Herc watches his son, not the distressed-sounding robot. 

Afterwards, the Academy lays lunch for the parents in the canteen, and from what Herc understands, Chuck is supposed to fix a tray for him at the buffet and stand by the table and wait on his father during the meal. They did that the first two times Herc visited, but it didn't -- Herc didn't like that. 

This time as they're going into the canteen, Herc grabs Chuck by the elbow. "Hey," he says. "You going to get in trouble if we find a place to eat this?"

Herc holds up a bag he bought at what felt like an extortionate price at the train station and filled with sandwiches and snacks and drinks from the vending machines.

It's been a while since Herc has seen Chuck happy, even longer since he had any part in it.

... 

"What's this?"

"The old astro lab. Modern one is downstairs," Chuck says, stepping through. 

Herc stares at the two-story, multi-ton telescope in front of him, the domed glass above, the shelves and shelves of books running around the curved walls. 

...

They're outside, sitting on a balcony that wraps around the building with the large telescope: unlike in the City, the weather here is clear, and the Academy has enough land that the sky is dark enough for astronomy. Chuck says they take the first years come out to the balcony for basics of astronomical record taking, whatever that means. 

Herc doesn't know what to say to that, so instead:

"How's combat?"

"All right," Chuck says. "It's a lot of classroom right now." 

Herc considers the idea of teaching fighting in the classroom: learning about stars and science is hands-on, but combat has _theory_.

In the bag were four sandwiches, two bottles of water, a malted chocolate drink that Herc remembers seeing on the shelves at home back when Ange had been doing the shopping, but has come mostly up to room temperature by lunch, and some candy bars. Herc gave Chuck the malted chocolate drink and split everything else down the middle. 

He sees Chuck looking at his collar, and Chuck sees him looking. After swallowing, Chuck asks.

"Who do you work for?"

"Man in the Towers." 

Chuck rolls his eyes, still holding his half of the prawn-and-egg sandwich. 

"What does he do?"

"Works for one of those trading houses," Herc says. Before Chuck can roll his eyes again, Herc adds, "Jaeger, not Kaiju, and they do weapons and armor. I know they make guns and some bigger stuff, like combat suits and gunships." 

Chuck considers this, and Herc sees the moment when Chuck decides that is something he can be proud of. It's an oddly adult expression on a child's face, and an early spring breeze is blowing in over the grass and up the side of the building. Herc suddenly feels --

"You still hungry?" Chuck asks after finishing off his half of the sandwich. "I can see if there's anything left in the canteen and bring it up." 

Instead, Herc gives Chuck the half-sandwich he has left, plus his share of the chocolate. Chuck is taller than Herc remembers, eats more than Herc remembers, and even after all these months of weekly calls, Herc still isn't used to seeing his son in a blue student jumpsuit with the Academy insignia pins on either side of his collar. 

Herc watches his son. 

...

On the train ride home, the discomfort in his legs from sitting so long on his marked-up thighs notwithstanding, Herc falls asleep. His dreams are strange, muddled, and he wakes with a start and realizes that the airtrain is has already pulled into the Tower where Stacker lives. Herc has to grab the bag and his jacket and run for the train door. His heart is still beating fast when he gets into the general elevator to the residences. From there, he rides to the mezzanine where there are a half a dozen private elevators for the penthouse residences, and he spends thirty seconds standing in front of Stacker's, trying to get his body under control.

Herc presents his thumbprint to get the elevator door, and his corneal scan and voice print before it will take him up. In contrast, the front door of the house unlocks at his touch.

...

"Herc," Stacker says. 

"Sir," Herc replies, and Stacker considers him for a count of five.

"Come back when you're ready, and kneel," Stacker says, finally, and Herc goes to his quarters and changes. He hangs the jacket up, and he folds and puts away the shirt. The shoes go back into their box in the dresser, and the cloth bag from the convenience store is folded and put into the drawer where Herc keeps his personal effects. Herc resists the urge to touch the other things in there. 

Instead, he puts his house clothes back on -- folded by the pillow in the morning, and it's one of those long-sleeved shirts that Stacker likes him in, a pair of the track pants that Stacker brought home. Herc comes, barefoot, to the side of the armchair in the greatroom. A little stiffly, he kneels. There is a rug in this part of the room, but Herc aches from the long train ride, and there isn't a kneeling pad. 

Without looking up from the file, Stacker reaches over, hooks a hand under Herc's collar, and pulls Herc's face against his knee. 

...

Since Herc lets himself be pulled, Stacker rewards him by taking his hand off the collar and tucking his hand over the back of Herc's neck. His palm is warm and dry, and with his face pressed against Stacker's knee, Herc can see, out of the corner of one eye, Stacker's usual tablet propped up on the coffee table: the lock-screen is the output feed from Herc's collar, and it shows blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, all in numbers, with heart rate also shown as a scrolling graph on the bottom. Herc can see the spike from when he woke up on the train and realized he was about to miss his stop.

He can see his heartbeat now, slowing, steadying under Stacker's hand, almost as if he were falling back asleep.

...

That night, Stacker puts the second-smallest anal plug in Herc.

Then, he has Herc lie next to him in bed on his stomach while Stacker reads: an actual, old-fashioned book. Stacker turns pages with his right hand and keeps his left in the small of Herc's back. Occasionally, he reaches up and trails his fingers down from between Herc's shoulder blades, over his spine, all the way down to the flared base of the plug, pressing gently to make sure that it is seated. From time to time, Herc knows, Stacker will put down the book and just look at him: the freckles over the arms and shoulders, the unit tattoo on the shoulder and the miscellany of small scars on his back. The tattoo with Angela's name over on the other side. 

Since Stacker is touching him, Herc is allowed to look away, and he does, keeping his face turned towards the nightstand. He keeps his eyes closed, breathes out slow and steady. The plug doesn't hurt; there was plenty of lube and preparation, and it isn't as wide as three of Stacker's fingers together. 

Then: 

"Look at me," Stacker says, softly, and Herc turns his face so that he is looking at Stacker.

"Do you want anything before bed?" Stacker asks. "Water? Bathroom?"

"No, sir." 

Stacker considers him for a moment, and then, putting his hand lightly on Herc's back so that Herc knows he is to stay in place, Stacker reaches across him and puts the book on the nightstand. He turns out the bedside light, then lies back down in bed on his back.

The room is dark, and Herc goes very still. Stacker turns on his side and pulls Herc against him, fitting Herc's back to his front. Herc feels Stacker's hand down between his legs, checking the plug one more time, then moving out a little to stroke the curve of his ass. Herc holds very still, and after a moment where Stacker goes on caressing him, Stacker settles his hand on Herc's bare waist. As usual, Stacker is in track pants for bed. Herc is naked.

The room is dark, and the plug in his ass doesn't hurt too much. Neither do the welts on his legs. 

...

After six, almost seven months, it's the first time Stacker has Herc in his bed during the night. 

...

In the morning, with the sun coming through the wall-to-wall window, Herc learns that the third drawer is meant for him, too. 

He is drowsy from a night of interrupted sleep, waking up every time Stacker shifted, and Stacker calls him over from the bed and puts him down on the floor -- Herc is tall enough to see inside, and blinking sleep out of his eyes, he sees, neatly laid out, each in its own section of the custom drawer insert, Stacker's collection of paraphernalia he wants to use on Herc's nipples. There are long ones that look like tweezers, ones with screws, intimidating ornate ones connected by a chain. To start with, Stacker chooses the ones that look like tweezers and are connected by a light chain; he puts them on Herc's nipples and balances a hand on the top of Herc's head.

"Put your hands behind your back," Stacker says.

Kneeling, with the clamps on his nipples and his eyes on Stacker's face, Herc does that. 

"Open your mouth."

Stacker has a thumb hooked around the waist of his track pants.

...

Afterwards, while Stacker is in the shower, he leaves Herc on his knees next to the wardrobe with come smeared across his face, the plug still in his ass and the welts only half-gone from his legs -- Stacker comes out, towelling himself off. He dries his hands and bends down, close enough that Herc can feel Stacker's breath warm on his face and runs his hand across Herc's collarbones, from sternum to shoulder, first on the left side, then the right.

Herc learns that as much as nipple clamps hurt going on and during, they hurt coming off, too. 

...

In the third drawer of the wardrobe, Stacker has a pair of clips, small and metal, just tight enough to hurt going on and hurt coming off. They aren't entirely secure, but that is, Herc understands without having to be told, the point. Stacker likes the idea of Herc having to adjust them himself during the day: Herc has permission to leave them off while in the gym, but is to put them back on afterwards. Consequently, Herc stands in the bathroom of his quarters, looking at himself in the mirror, pinching his nipples hard, putting the clips on, cursing when he finds out that putting the clamp the tip is easiest, but hurts the most and is the least secure.

Herc doesn't like the way he looks with them. He hates the way they catch under his shirt and how they have a tendency to slide off if he pulls on a shirt too quickly, how they have a tendency to slide off before he can reach under his shirt to fix them and how he then spends time on his knees, feeling under furniture, peering between cushions, trying to find them while his goddamn chest aches. Still, when Stacker comes home that night, Herc is waiting in the foyer. The outline of the clips are visible under Herc's shirt, and after Stacker hangs up his coat, he turns to Herc.

"Pull your shirt up," Stacker says.

Herc flushes, but reaches down with both hands and brings the bottom of his shirt up high, above the clips: they both know what Stacker is going to do. 

"Look at me," Stacker tells him, and Herc does. "Keep your eyes on my face." 

...

Stacker pulls the clips off, one at a time, first the left, then the right. Holding the clips in his left hand, Stacker uses his right hand to feel to how the nipples are warm, more than a little tender. His hands are gentle. Then, he twists the left one, hard, using his thumb and forefinger. He watches how Herc struggles to keep his eyes where they should be, and he does the same to Herc's right ripple before he straightens. 

"For the next month," Stacker says, "I expect to be busy. There may be nights when I don't come home. If I leave instructions, I expect them to be followed."

Herc doesn't want to answer, so Stacker waits while Herc goes on kneeling, shirt raised and cheeks still slightly flushed, eyes a little wet. 

"Yes, sir," Herc says, finally. 

Stacker pockets the clips and gives Herc the rest of the night to himself. 

...

Stacker makes sure that Herc sees a full copy of Stacker's sexual profile: unusual in an agency placement, but Stacker wants Herc to be clear on what a contract would involve. Consequently, the agency brings Herc in a third time. They explain. Due to privacy reasons, he can't take a hard copy or make notes, but he can have as long as he would like in the room to review the profile and ask any questions. Sitting across from him is the same attractive, carefully made up woman from his second intake interview, and Herc studies at her face, the expensive hair, the glossy nails, then turns to the screen: if he has any questions, the woman says, he should feel free to ask.

The profile is detailed and classifies practices by general interest ( _highly interested_ to _strongly disinterested_ ) and frequency expected during the term of contract ( _multiple times a day_ to _once or twice during term of service_ and _never_ ). 

"What does the green mean?" Herc says, looking up.

The handler glances down at her notes, then up. "The client became more interested in the practice after your interview. Congratulations, Mr. Hansen." 

Her smile, Herc thinks, is meant to be reassuring, but it makes the skin prickle up and down his arms: he knows he can take a beating and understands that by submission, the man wants to order Herc around and have sex with him. On the other hand, there is something that Herc doesn't like about the idea of being wanted personally. 

Specifically. 

...

Later, Herc finds out how unusual it is for a client to provide the full, detailed sexual workup for a patron: even rarer for a client to pull aside an agency representative after the interview, before contract signing and ask to update his profile for the purpose of disclosure. 

Later still, Herc finds out that the reason Stacker moved nipple play and all the constituent sub-activities from _open to idea_ and _occasional_ to _strong likelihood_ and _with regularity_ because he liked the way Herc held himself in the interview room while on his knees: old Security Forces training to hold straight and keep the chest thrust out. In basic training, drill officers push their faces into the faces of recruits and ask whether they are ashamed to wear the uniform. No? Do they hate the Forces? Then why do they continue to disgrace the Forces by hunching? 

...

Stacker also tells Herc the truth. He spends the next month busy, barely at home except to sleep. In fact, he is so engaged with work that he doesn't have time to give Herc much in the way of instruction. _Kneel by the door for half an hour. Kneel by the wardrobe with the third drawer open, and look at everything in there for fifteen minutes._ Other than that, Herc spends most of his days and nights on his own, looking at things on the terminal, going up onto the roof garden to watch air traffic and the city light up at night, then catching up on sleep. He still has difficulty doing more than dozing while on his knees or in bed with Stacker. 

One night, Herc wakes because the house system chimes that Stacker is on his way back. The alarm clock tells him that it's two in the morning, and because slept through the first warning, he has to scramble to wash his face and put on track pants. Herc slides through the house on bare feet, and Stacker comes through the door, looking tired. He is a little startled to see Herc there. He meant to tell the house system not to wake Herc. 

Stacker even apologizes, which makes Herc blink. 

A week later, the busy period is over.

...

Stacker goes out for a celebratory dinner without Herc. He wears a tuxedo, in fact, and Herc helps him dress, finding the cufflinks that Stacker wants to wear -- understated, almost a little old and knocked-about looking, silver with the Jaeger eagle and star carved on them. Herc is surprised, but doesn't ask questions, and Stacker comes home drunk enough to be more than a little unsteady on his feet, which is more drunk than Herc has ever seen him. Herc helps him to bed, undresses him down to underwear, and rolls him onto his side.

"Put the cufflinks in the drawer," Stacker says, sleepily. "Then come back."

Herc does.

"Did you put them away?" Stacker asks. 

"Yes, sir," Herc says. It's either very late or very early, by another way of looking at it. The techglass window is maybe ten, fifteen percent translucent. 

There is a moment when Herc thinks that maybe Stacker has fallen asleep, but then he reaches over and touches the back of Herc's hand. "Take off your clothes ," he says, "turn out the lights, and come to bed." 

Again, Herc does what he is told. Stacker is drunk, drowsy, and happy, and when Herc slides under the sheets, Stacker makes a low noise of contentment and tucks Herc against his chest. He kisses the back of Herc’s neck.

...

Three days after that, Stacker has Herc's nipples pierced.


	15. Chapter 15

A woman comes to the house. She is brown skinned with short hair, and there are two piercings through her left eyebrow, an array in either ear, one in the tongue. A floating carrier follows her into the house, bearing equipment; the doors at the front of the house are technically double, and Stacker comes in and out through the one on the right-hand side. To let the carrier to fit through, he opens both doors, and she sets up on the dining room table. 

Herc stays kneeling by the armchair where Stacker left him. 

In fact, Herc keeps his face pressed against the upholstery fabric, breathing deeply. Until the moment Stacker tells him to come and take his shirt off, Herc isn't entirely sure who or what is going to get hurt. 

... 

Stacker and the woman talk briefly. 

How is Stacker's contractor with pain? Stacker says that if his contractor should be fine. Will he hold still? Stacker tells her, politely, that he doesn't anticipate trouble. 

...

Afterwards, when the woman is gone, Stacker puts Herc on his knees by the dining table and gives him instructions: the piercer left saline solution for him to soak his piercings in, and Herc should also wash them out, gently but thoroughly, using soap and water, every time he showers. Every night, Stacker will make sure they're healing cleanly and that the barbells are being moved around enough. It's Herc's choice, Stacker adds, whether he goes shirtless during the day, but Stacker expects that when he is at home, Herc will have his shirt off. 

The words hang in the air. 

"Look at me," Stacker says, and he touches the side of Herc's face to make clear: he knows Herc avoided tracking him during the piercing. 

"Put your hands behind your back," he says, and Herc does. 

"Do you have any questions?" Stackers asks. 

His hand is still on Herc's cheek, and Herc hears himself say, quietly, obediently, "No, sir." 

Two days later, Herc is wilfully disobedient. 

...

Stacker comes through the door and finds Herc kneeling, but still wearing his shirt. He turns his face from Stacker's hand at dinner, saying that he already ate. Naked on Stacker's bed after evening inspection, Herc needs to be repeatedly reminded to keep his legs spread, and when Stacker leans over for more lubricant for the plug he wants to keep in Herc overnight, Herc buries his face in the bed. Stacker considers Herc on his elbows and knees to keep pressure off the piercings, and Stacker wipes his hand off on Herc's back. He sets the plug down and goes back to the wardrobe: before he puts the suspension cuffs on Herc, he shows them to Herc, makes sure Herc can see them clearly this time, so that he'll remember how they fit over his hands and wrists. 

Herc hangs next to the kitchen wall overnight and has to beg, politely, scraping sound out of a dry throat, trembling at the shoulders and hips and ankles, to be let down before Stacker goes to work. 

...

Because Stacker has to go to work, he tells Herc that his beating will come that evening: to keep Herc in the right mindset, he leaves the suspension cuffs on during the day, connected at the wrists with a carabiner. After work, Stacker steps into the house and hangs up his coat and puts away his scarf and gloves, but instead of caressing Herc's face and turning to the kitchen to get his dinner the way he usually does, he hooks two fingers over Herc's collar and drags him over to the dining table. Herc tries to follow on his knees, but is slow to his feet. Every part of him is stiff; significant parts of him are going to hurt badly soon, and Herc's mind feels blurry around the edges. 

Stacker picks up the paddle he laid on the dining room table before leaving in the morning. 

"Do you recognize this?" 

Herc flinches, but forces himself to look. 

"Yes, sir," Herc says, feeling the emptiness in his stomach and the dryness in his throat and that strange, light-headed sensation. 

To drive the point home, Stacker doesn't beat Herc over the edge of the table. Instead, he pulls a chair out and lays Herc across the seat, chest hanging off on one end and Herc's hips flat against the other: part of the punishment is reminding Herc that he has been with Stacker long enough to feel variations like this. Even when he doesn't want to participate, even when he is trying not to acknowledge Stacker, he understands. He knows better. 

...

Herc takes his beating, and the rest of the night is filled with reminders that drive the point home. Herc kneels next to Stacker for dinner, but Stacker keeps the suspension cuffs on him, clipped together behind his back, and doesn't offer Herc anything to drink or eat. Stacker works in the great room, reading on a tablet that he brought home with him, but instead of being able to drift off comfortably sitting on the floor with his face tucked against Stacker's knee, Herc stays five feet away, on his knees by the coffee table, naked, swaying from soreness and tiredness and having to keep his eyes on Stacker. Eventually, Stacker sets puts his work on the armchair and goes over. He considers the glazed look in Herc's eyes and the shallow, rapid way Herc starts breathing when Stacker came close. He considers, too, the way Herc sinks when pushed down by the shoulders, so that his bruised ass rests on his calves. 

"Would you like ice?"

Herc tries to make words come out of his mouth, but fails the first time. He swallows and tries again. 

"Please, sir." 

Stacker strokes the side of Herc's face: Herc doesn't lean against Stacker's palm, but he does close his eyes and keeps himself still. Despite the beatings and humiliation, he doesn't let himself flinch again, so Stacker goes to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water in his right hand and a bag of ice in his left. The water goes down, Herc drinking greedily, and he makes small noises of pleasure when Stacker turns him onto the couch, face-down, with a pillow under his stomach and the ice pack balanced over his ass. 

"Would you like something to eat?"

There is a small pause. 

Herc's voice is a little muffled by the upholstery, but he says, clearly enough: "Please, sir."

...

That day, the only food Herc gets is from Stacker's hands. The only water he drinks is what Stacker tips into his mouth. Stacker keeps the suspension cuffs on Herc and the pillow under Herc's stomach and the ice on Herc's ass until Stacker is done with his work for the night. Then, the ice. Then, the pillow, so that Herc has to kneel, hands and elbows, in order to stay in the position Stacker put him in. Then, Stacker tells Herc to get off the couch. He watches Herc trying to do that on his knees without bumping into Stacker, without landing on his chest, with his ass and thighs and back and shoulders aching. 

Stacker lets Herc stay next to him for a few minutes, face pressed against Stacker, getting his breath back. 

Then, Stacker removes the suspension cuffs, and Herc kneels between Stacker's thighs and sucks him off. 

Then, Herc washes his piercings off in Stacker's shower, and Stacker steps behind Herc in the shower: he slicks his palms with soap and slides them down Herc's wet stomach. 

Herc bends his head under the shower spray and spreads his legs. 

...

There is -- 

...

There is the first time Herc has a call with Chuck with the barbells in his nipples. There is the first time that Herc goes to see Chuck, in person, and the barbells are in him. They aren't supposed to come out until the tissue has healed around them -- Stacker told him the night before while Herc was still struggling to phrase the question. Consequently, Herc keeps his suit jacket on throughout the visit. 

...

There is the time, before Stacker has Herc lie down on the dining room table and accept having the needle from a piercing gun put through his nipples, first the right, then the left, with Stacker's hand resting on Herc's stomach during the clamping and piercing -- there is a time during the month long busy period that comes before where Stacker spends a Saturday at home. He wakes, does his morning call, eats his breakfast, then puts Herc on his knees by the bed. Sunlight comes through the techglass window. Stacker shows Herc the clamps he brought home on Friday. 

...

Herc doesn't know what they're called, but they're large. To Herc's way of thinking, they're ornate, and Stacker shows him the part on top that will go on either side of each nipple, along with the mechanism underneath that will increase the pressure if Stacker pulls downwards on them or puts a weight. Another pair in the wardrobe has a chain running between them, but these are different. They do not have a chain; these are new. 

In fact, sitting on the side of the bed, Herc on the floor with his face between Stacker's knees, Stacker demonstrates using the back of his right hand. 

"Do you understand?" he says, using his left hand to take the clamp off, then using that hand to turn Herc's face up to him, so that Herc knows where his attention should be. 

"Yes, sir," Herc says, and the expression on his face -- Stacker strokes Herc's wet mouth from corner to corner. 

Herc's hands are already behind him with the everyday cuffs and a carabiner between them, so Stacker puts the clamps down and takes from the nightstand a small wood case: something else that he picked up on Friday, and he opens the box to show Herc. Inside, the box is lined with yellow silk, and tucked against the fabric are six pairs of matched ceramic weights of increasing size and mass, each a deep Jaeger blue and topped with fine golden wires. The effect, to Stacker's way of thinking, is handsome: they match Herc, particularly when the morning light coming from the window picks out the gold in Herc's hair and the stubble over his cheeks and the fine hairs over his chest. 

Herc's eyes are blue, a little lighter than the weights. 

Stacker blindfolds Herc. 

...

He puts the clamps on Herc, left one first, right one second. 

Moving slowly, so that he can savor every moment and motion and breath, Stacker gets the lightest weights out of the box. They're only as long as a joint of his index finger, but vividly colored and beautiful and cool against his palm. Stacker holds them against Herc's skin, partially to let Herc know what's coming, but also to admire the way the way Herc looks. Herc's nipples are white under the clamps, but he is pink over the rest of his chest and up along his neck. 

Stacker decides he was right to get the weights in this color; Herc's entire body reacts when Stacker clips the first weight onto his left nipple. 

...

Before Stacker puts the second weight on, though, the house system chimes: Stacker has an incoming call from the office. Priority call, office flag. It's the one that Stacker has been waiting to take, and Stacker strokes Herc's face. He tells Herc _stay_ and feels, under his hands, Herc make an almost silent, high-pitched noise. 

Stacker takes the first part of the call out in the great room, gathering a file from the study on his way. When he comes back to the bedroom, the call follows him. There are speakers throughout the house; the system is intelligent enough to track Stacker, and he finds Herc still by the bed, still blindfolded, still cuffed, a single blue weight still dangling from the clover clamp on his left nipple, but the sun is further along the floor. Herc is rubbing his cheek against the sheets on the mattress to even out the throbbing, growing discomfort that is worse on one side than the other. 

Calmly, Stacker sits down on the edge of the bed, and at first, Herc tries desperately to hold still and quiet. He can hear the phone call happening over the house system, and every few minutes, Stacker will have something to say. Consequently, Herc bites noises back. He tries to stop himself from rubbing against the bed, because he has a vague sense that Stacker would disapprove and Herc will end up being punished for it: instead, Stacker hooks three fingers around Herc's collar and hauls him between Stacker's knees. He presses Herc's face to the inside of his thigh, and Herc holds still for another moment. 

Absently, still mostly paying attention to the call, Stacker starts to rub his thumb in a circle over the back of Herc's neck, and Herc buries a whimper against Stacker's thigh. 

When Stacker's hand goes still, Herc starts to rock against Stacker. 

...

Afterwards, when the call is done, Stacker lays Herc on his side on the bed and takes the clover clamp and lets Herc rock to his side bury his face into the bed for a moment and make a noises between a shout and a sob. No punishment for that, but while Herc's nipple still throb and throb and ache and burn, Stacker rolls Herc onto his back and pulls the blindfold up. There are tears in the corner of Herc's eyes; his mouth is red from rubbing against Stacker's trousers, and Stacker slowly, carefully, deliberately presses his mouth on Herc's mouth. He feels Herc tremble, and he feels Herc tremble and sob at the same time when Stacker slides down further and puts his mouth against Herc's skin and runs his tongue over the nipple. 

Then, he puts the clamp back on. Then, he puts a second one on. 

Then, he counts to a hundred before taking them off.

Then, with Herc still on his back, hands cuffed underneath him, Stacker reaches over to the nightstand. He sets the clamps down, and opens the drawer. 

Herc goes absolutely still when Stacker explains that he is going to use a vibrator on Herc. 

...

"Ask me for it," Stacker tells him.

The noise Herc makes is wordless, so Stacker keeps the vibrator on Herc's perineum with one hand and yanks Herc's face towards him using his other. 

"Look at me," Stacker says, taking his fingers from Herc's jaw and putting them around the collar. He feels how Herc has to force his eyes off the bed and onto Stacker's face; Herc's eyes are blue, and his mouth is wet. With his shoulders and neck, Herc is straining away from Stacker, but his hips are arched and his dick is hard and dark and flushed, slick from a mix of pre-come and lube that Stacker used to get Herc aroused enough for the vibrator to work. 

Stacker tightens his hand on Herc's collar, then repeats himself. "Ask to come."

Words never come easily to Herc, especially not words like that, but Stacker waits him out. He knows what it takes to keep Herc almost, but not quite there. Sometimes, he takes his hand away from Herc's collar and curls his fingers around Herc's dick. Other times, he reaches up and takes one of Herc's nipples between his thumb and forefinger. Herc whimpers and tries to twist away, but his body is starting to draw the connection between that kind of stimulation and sexual pleasure. When Herc closes his eyes, Stacker reminds him to keep them open. When he tries to look away, Stacker pulls his face back to the right the direction. 

Eventually, Stacker gets what he wants. 

...

Slowly, Herc is --


	16. Chapter 16

Mid-spring, Stacker hosts a dinner party. 

To Herc, a dinner party meant boredom at Angie's parents' house and crowded rooms full of their friends and neighbors and Angela in a foul mood in a hot kitchen after spending all morning helping her mother clean, and Herc finding an out-of-the-way place to put himself and nurse a beer while Angela's mother circulated with a tray of appetizers and a company smile plastered on her face. In contrast, Stacker tells Herc about the dinner party in passing. Small, a few friends, this weekend. Then, Stacker takes his hand off Herc's collar. He slides over a little in the bed. Herc interprets this correctly: he gets off the floor and slips in next to Stacker. 

Stacker turns out the bedside light. 

...

Small. Casual. A few friends. The experience is eye-opening for Herc: how do people with as much money as Stacker throw a small party? Stacker does, by Herc's way of measuring, little to none of the work himself. To handle the food, there are caterers who come the afternoon before. For cleaning, there are the household robots that keep things clean, but the morning before, an actual crew of five people come to wipe, scrub, and clean. Herc can't comprehend the expense involved. 

Stacker asks whether Herc wants them to clean his quarters as well, and Herc shakes his head, and so when the cleaners arrive, Stacker tells them: clean the guest bathroom and the main area and kitchen and everywhere else, but leave the contractor quarters alone. Stacker eats on roof garden, takes Herc with him and lets Herc have one of the cushions from the patio chairs. The morning is clear, and Stacker is in a good mood. He feeds Herc part of a breakfast pastry with his hands, hands down his leftover coffee for Herc to drink. Mostly, Stacker stays out of the way, and after lunch, one of his office assistants comes by to coordinate the final meeting between Tower security and Jaeger security coordinating and guest security. 

...

For the party itself, Herc puts on a white shirt and slacks. Stacker tells him to leave off the suit jacket. The weather will be fine, so the first part of the dinner will be up on the roof, and the caterers bring Herc a plate to eat early. After that, but before the guests arrive, Stacker takes Herc back up to the roof. He puts down a kneeling pad and uses a length of black rope from the wardrobe to tie Herc to a bench, left knee against the leg of the bench, left wrist against the arm. 

"Pull," Stacker says, and Herc does. The bench is heavy and bolted to the ground. 

"Comfortable?" 

Herc finds that his mouth is dry. "Yes sir," he says, and Stacker strokes his hair, then goes inside to wait for his guests.

...

Mostly, the guests ignore Herc and go past, admiring the view with drinks in their hands: a few look at him, but nobody touches him or sits down on the bench. When dinner is served inside, Stacker is the last to go. He stops by Herc and touches Herc, gently: again, he hasn't been forgotten. Just put away for a while. 

...

Hours pass. 

The sun sets. Herc's knees have been numb for a while, even with the kneeling pad, and with the concrete, they pass through numb to pins-and-needles to outright pain. Herc is trying to keep them from going back to numb, because it'll just be worse for him when Stacker unties him, so he flexes his feet and wrist, tries to get what movement he can while tied to furniture. Over the edge of the roof garden, the evening lights of the City come on. So do the pathway lights. The flood lights for the plantings are motion-activated, and someone thought to turn off the nightly watering in order to keep the pathways dry for guests. 

Eventually, he hears the elevator ding. Most people come up the curving stairway for the views along the railing, but there is an elevator, and he hears two voices coming down the garden path. There are ornamental plantings situated to make the path wind and give privacy, and when the voices get closer, Herc realizes its Stacker and a woman. They come around the grass planting, and Herc sees that she is tall, almost but not quite as tall as Stacker. She has a cane that she uses heavily, and there are piercings in her ears and her face. A suit jacket and a long black skirt underneath. 

She sees Herc. Herc sees her. 

"You little _shit_ , Stacks," she says, laughing, and while Herc is still frozen with shock, without waiting to see Stacker's response or for him to give permission, she closes the last feet to Herc. She smiles again when she sees how, still stiff with surprise, Herc looks for Stacker for reassurance. 

She doesn't bother to wait for Stacker to give permission. 

Instead, she tells Herc that her name is Tamsin Sevier. 

...

Mako didn't introduce herself to Herc. The woman who pierced him didn't introduce herself. Good manners call for Stacker either to give permission or personally make all introductions to his contractor. 

...

Later, inside, when all the other guests are gone and Stacker and Tamsin are sitting in the great-room, talking about old times and old deals and Stacker is pouring the good whiskey for her and the caterers are finishing clean-up in the kitchen, Herc kneels by Stacker's chair until Stacker tells him to go to bed in his own quarters. Getting up, stiffly, half asleep, Herc gets up and goes, and while brushing his teeth and trying to decide whether he is awake enough to undress all the way for bed, Herc catches a glimpse of himself in the full-body mirror in his quarters. 

Herc thinks in a tired, confused way: Tamsin has red hair. Tamsin has piercings. Tamsin and Stacker are old friends, lovers at some point if they aren't current ones, but there is something else between them that Herc can't put his finger on. 

Exhausted, Herc falls asleep, shoes on, before he can push the train of thought any further.


	17. Chapter 17

From time to time, Herc thinks about money. 

...

In a way, he thinks about it less under contract. Stacker has a meal delivery service that brings food to the house -- three meals a day plus a little extra for Herc since he spends so much time in the gym, sixteen meals a week for Stacker unless he is traveling since he eats weekday lunches at the office. Two months short of a year, Stacker hasn't given permission for Herc to leave the house during the day, and all the new things that Herc wears have been brought home for him. What does Herc have to spend money on? A monthly train ticket to see Chuck, along with the vending machine sandwiches and candy he brings his son. Once a year, Christmas. Once a year, Chuck's birthday. 

No more rent. No more pushing and scraping. No more grinding worry and budgeting down to the last cent and Chuck still running out of money on his transit card before the end of the month. 

...

In a way, Herc thinks about money more. He signed the contract and put his thumb to it and had his cornea scanned, all to make Chuck didn't grow up in the Slums. 

One night, he can't sleep, so he turns the terminal back on. The overhead fluorescents are off; the door is closed, and Herc doesn't have windows in his quarters, so the terminal is the only light. Instead of sitting at the stool that came with the quarters, that he keeps tucked under the desk, square edges squared to rectangular ones, Herc stands. He has a new plug inside him tonight, and it isn't even the next size up in the matched set from the wardrobe. Instead, it's something new that Stacker brought home in a black box that he carried in a white paper bag. Wider. Thicker. A good bit longer, and after cleaning it off and drying it and putting it in, Stacker took Herc over to the dressing area afterwards and had Herc kneel with his back to the mirror and look at the reflection while Stacker touched his face and mouth and shoulders and chest and collar. 

It left Herc feeling -- unsettled. 

Now, in the darkness of his contractor quarters, with instructions to keep the plug until the morning, his arms and hands prickle. He feels alternately flushed and a little chilly. He can't lie on his back; lying on his stomach makes him think too much of lying in Stacker's bed. 

Instead, Herc stands in his quarters, naked from the waist down, lube slowly drying to stickiness on his thighs, breathing slowly and looking at the numbers accumulating in his bank account. 

Herc thinks about what money like that means to people like him. 

...

For Herc, the amounts involved are -- not entirely comprehensible. How is he worth that much to anyone? Every month, Stacker's bank deposits a sum that is more than what Herc made in the year when he graduated from basic training and started wearing a combat suit and carrying a rifle as a grunt, putting his life on the line, day in, day out, for unit pride and Force honor. Four times a year, the Academy deducts tuition; Chuck is only eleven, but the cost of a full year, including summer session and fifty-two weeks of boarding, is staggering. If Ang were alive, Chuck would be skipping the summer, going home between terms and for holidays. 

If he were on a security contract, Herc guesses he would just barely manage to cover three terms, but it would be hard. Ang would have had to go back to work. 

Instead, in the first year of his contract to Stacker, Herc could pay tuition for twice times over and have enough to live comfortably in the lower-middle of a Tower: the amount will go up by a certain percentage every year, plus a cost of living escalator, plus a substantial bonus if the contract is in force at certain milestone dates. 

For setting up the contract and maintaining the collar and their other trouble, the agency takes a cut of 20% of Herc's fee throughout the term. 

...

Money comes up in other ways, too. Herc is in better health than he has been for years. He sleeps a decent amount, gets to eat real food made out of real plants and animals. He spends hours in the gym, on the treadmill, lifting weights, trying to keep active, and he sits in the roof garden, watching traffic: the first time there is a noticeable line on his arms from sitting out in a short-sleeved shirt, he wonders whether Stacker will punish him, but Stacker apparently doesn't mind. He brings home, the next day, a tube of cream for keeping from getting burned. 

Stacker has so much money that he lives in an area where there aren't Slums outside the Towers: instead, Herc sits in the roof garden and studies the green spaces. Trees. Parks. Pleasant areas and leisure facilities for people with clearance to be in the area. 

...

So: 

No more drinking. No more of the stimulants that keep regular service workers, contract or not, productive for hour after gruelling, draining hour. 

None of the battle stimulants that he took in the Forces, complicated cocktails that left even nervous trainees strong and fearless and fast. In return, they took away an average of a month of life expectancy per use for those under twenty-five and two months for those over that age. Herc remembers the first time he led, at twenty-four, a squad into a situation where battle stimulants were dispensed: he had ten in his squad, not counting himself, not counting the medic. They were seated in two rows on either side of a gunship, facing each other, and the medic went down the left line first, then the right. Each soldier tilted his or her head to expose a patch of bare throat over the combat suit. Then, the needle went in, and the medic stuck around to check pupil dilation and pulse and to make sure that nobody went into shock. 

Herc took his dose, and when the door went down, Herc was at the front. They were clearing out, door to door, a Slum building to which protesters had fled after a confrontation with Tower security; the population was hostile. 

Even if he had officer stripes, Herc had no intention of being a suit and tie with a flashy smile. 

...

One night, Stacker takes him to Tamsin's. 

Her house is smaller, but an entire wall is techglass from floor to ceiling, and Herc can see outside the city starting to light up at dusk. Inside, the floors throughout are cream-colored stone that stays cold even during a city summer. Stacker sits on the couch with Herc between his knees and facing Tamsin, who is a half-dozen feet away: cream colored furniture on cream-colored colored rug on cream-colored stone. 

"Present," Stacker says quietly, and Herc does. They've run through what Stacker expects Herc to do; Herc knows how Stacker wants him to take his shirt off and fold it and put it at Stacker's feet, then shift and kneel with his knees apart at shoulder-width and his arms behind his back, each hand holding, loosely, the elbow of the opposite arm. 

Sitting in her armchair, Tamsin looks at Herc, then at Stacker. 

For a moment, Herc thinks she is going to laugh at Stacker again. He knows, for reasons that he doesn't want to acknowledge, that this would be terrible. 

But she doesn't. 

Instead, she says, softly, "Come here," and Herc goes to her, as instructed, on his hands and knees. 

Tamsin studies him, but doesn't touch him. Out of the corner of his eye, Herc can see her cane propped between the armchair and her side table, and there is a fine scar running down her face from cheek to jaw. Why hasn't Tamsin had it fixed? Herc sees Tamsin’s eyes run from the scar at the junction of his shoulder, to his collar, to somewhere over his shoulder, and her expression is fierce yet distant.

She has, Herc is beginning to realize, even more money and power than Stacker. 

"Go back to him," she says.

Herc turns around and crawls back. He feels strange throughout his body: strange, separate, as if the eyes he were seeing through didn't belong to him, as if the feeling of the carpet wasn't being transmitted through his palms. The feeling started in the afternoon when Stacker took out the barbells and put a pair of presentation hoops in, shining and gold-colored; it continued through the airshuttle ride. While crawling between Tamsin and Stacker, Herc feels it so strongly that when Stacker touches him, it startles him. 

In fact, Stacker puts his hand on Herc's collar and pushes him down to sit, barechested and barefooted, on the rug between Stacker's legs. Then, Tamsin and Stacker move on without another word: they start talking about an old deal. Stacker says he still remembers their faces when they walked in, Tamsin Sevier, back from the dead, and a black boy from the Slums wearing a good suit. Tamsin laughs, says that they weren't expecting him at all. 

_Not Stacker Pentecost,_ she says. _Not Sevier’s attack dog,_ Stacker corrects. 

By and large, the tone of his voice is warm. Amusement, a remembered pleasure. Still -- 

...

Still, Stacker is pleased: at dinner, he hands down a glass of wine for Herc to finish. 

It's the first alcohol Herc has touched in almost a year. 

...

One night, Herc is coming back from visiting Chuck, and he is half-dozing when a voice says, softly, a little hesitantly, "Sir?"

It's a woman standing in the aisle next to his seat. Tall, pale hair, civilian clothes, but Forces-regulation short hair, and she is standing the Forces way, too. She explains that she is sorry if she woke him, but recognized him from across the compartment and wanted to thank him for everything he did for her. Does he remember her? 

Herc blinks, then smiles when he realizes that he does. He says that she was in his squad when they did the clearance in Marseille Tower, and he never saw anybody run a three-person point team more cleanly -- she flushes with happiness. Does he want to meet her wife and kid? They're getting off in two stops, but since he isn't in the Forces now, she wanted to take this chance to thank him -- Herc says it would be his pleasure to meet them, and it turns out that her wife is almost as tall as she is, but with dark, curly hair pulled under a kerchief. They have a four year old son together, who doesn't look as though he is biologically related to Herc's old squad member, but who clearly loves both his mothers and is loved by them in return. 

"Glad to have your Mum home from the Forces?" Herc asks and sees the kid blush and try to hide in both of their shoulders. 

The wife with the kerchief asks, a little shyly, what Herc is doing out in the country? Nadia is on leave, so they had a day out at one of the recreational facilities, and she's guessing Mr. Hansen isn't with the Forces anymore. She touches her own throat by way of indicating that she means Herc's collar, and Herc explains that he was visiting his son at the Academy. 

Herc can see his old subordinate mentally scaling up just how well her old officer landed. 

... 

That night, Herc gets home. Stacker sees the misery written from edge to edge on his contractor's face, and Stacker touches Herc's cheek, rubs his thumb just under Herc's left eye. He has Herc change and come back and kneel with him until bedtime, but lets Herc sleep by himself that night.

...

One night --

...

One night, Stacker comes home, tired and on edge. The city is in the middle of the hottest, most humid part of its year, and even in the short walk from the airshuttle to the front door, Stacker's shirt gets damp. Inside, Herc kneels in the foyer, shirt off, hands appropriately tucked behind him. The house is dark and cool; all of the lights are off, but there is a little light from the outside in the transom glass over the doorway. Stacker looks down at Herc's quiet face, and he tells Herc they're going to shower before dinner. Herc starts to stand, but Stacker puts his hand on Herc's shoulder and pushes him back down, hard. 

"Crawl," Stacker says, in case he hasn't been sufficiently clear. 

Herc blinks, slowly, and he goes down to his hands and knees slowly: he pauses, but Stacker doesn't move, so they go to the bathroom that way, Herc crawling in the semi-dark in front and Stacker watching Herc's ass from behind and the lights of the house coming on behind Stacker, in sequence. 

The house, like everything in it, recognizes its master.


	18. Chapter 18

After the heat and humidity come typhoons. 

Herc has never been high in a Tower for one, and Stacker goes into the office through the first three that brush the city, but stays home for a fourth that comes closer. Herc comes back from a morning session in the gym and sees Stacker in the study, door open, just sitting down to a desk of work and breakfast. Stacker has a collared shirt on and suit trousers, but not a jacket or tie. He looks up, and Herc stops, three feet on the other side of the door in the hallway - he’d expected Stacker to be gone, lingered at the windows watching the faint lights flicker on and off at Slum level between the Towers, through the haze of the downpour. Stacker's eyes touch the flush on Herc's cheeks underneath the morning stubble, take in the way he is breathing fast from cardio. Herc's shirt is damp with sweat and sticks to his chest and the barbells, and he knows Stacker runs his eyes over those, then slides down to the outline of Herc's dick in his athletic shorts. 

"Come back when you're done," Stacker says and goes back to getting ready for his nine o' clock. 

...

Some of the calls that Stacker does that morning are video, and Herc thinks that they probably can't see his head laid in Stacker's lap, but they might be able to see Stacker has a hand there, or when Stacker moves his fingers over the back of Herc's neck.

Close to the scalp, there are places where Herc's hair is still damp from his shower. 

...

At noon, Stacker puts down his work for food: a meal from the refrigerator, and he takes Herc out into the great room with him, putting him by the couch while he heats food in the microwave. He gives Herc a break from kneeling and lets him sit on the floor and look at the vidscreen. A portion of a news program, reports of the typhoon from around the city, shots of Victoria Harbor lashed to enormous white waves, and at the left and right of Herc's field of vision, framing his view, Stacker's legs in gray summer-weight cloth. No mention of the flooding that will have overtaken low-lying areas in the Slums by now, but a minute and a half on airshuttle disruptions between the Towers for the duration of the storm.

When Stacker is done eating, he leans over Herc's right shoulder and sets the container down on the table.

"Stay," he says, touching Herc on the left shoulder, then standing up. 

He comes back with a heated-up container of food that Herc would, if given a choice, have saved for dinner. He usually has a protein bar after working out, but hadn't wanted to cross the study door to go back to the kitchen for it. Stacker usually doesn't set what or how much Herc eats: as long as Herc is still a little hungry to eat from his hand at dinner. 

That day, for lunch, Stacker not only wants to pick Herc's lunch, but feed it to him scrap by scrap, making him ask for each mouthful. Brown rice. Strips of chicken with a light sauce. Carrots. 

_Please, may I have some chicken, sir_

_Please, may I have a carrot, sir_

For the rice, Stacker spoons a few mouthfuls into one palm and holds it out for Herc. He puts the other hand under Herc's chin to catch grains that go overboard, and with the rice sticking in his throat, Herc asks, softly, if he might have something to drink. His voice scrapes over the words; he is a dehydrated from not drinking his usual quantity of water after working out, and Stacker bring him a large glass of water from the kitchen. Herc hears Stacker fill the glass in the kitchen; Herc hears Stacker washing his hands in the sink.

...

Herc drinks his glass of water down, then asks if he might go to the bathroom. 

Stacker gives him permission: Herc is too fresh off dehydration to need to take a leak, but with the door closed, he washes his hands and wipes them on a hand towel. He leans his head against the mirror, feels how cool it is on his forehead. When he straightens and looks at himself in his mirror, he sees how his cheeks are pink, and he sees how his mouth is still swollen because during certain parts of the last call before lunch, Stacker turned Herc's face up to him, and would deliberately take part of Herc's mouth between his thumb and a knuckle and press down.

Herc doesn’t think Stacker was on video for that call, but isn't sure. 

...

Chuck is unhappy about having to stay at the Academy for both the break between the spring and the summer terms and the summer and fall terms. He presses. Why can't he come and stay with Herc? Doesn't his employer have dormitories? Barracks? Chuck has work to do; he won't be any trouble. They can just leave him somewhere during the day. Herc doesn't have to ask for leave. 

Herc notices that his son stops just short of outright begging.

...

Herc explains that there aren't dormitories. He doesn't have defined times on and off shift. Chuck is angry, and Herc understands, even though Chuck never says either the word nor anything that comes close, that Chuck is lonely. All the things Chuck tells him about at the Academy have to do with doing well in classes or beating students older and bigger than him in sparring class. He doesn't talk about friends. Herc refrains from asking, and he and Chuck don't talk about it. 

Chuck wants time away from the Academy, but how can Herc give it to him? 

Chuck is quiet, borderline sullen for the rest of Herc’s visit. 

...

Five hours on the train back to Stacker, and Stacker isn't in the great room or his study. Herc goes from room to room, looking for him, and finds Stacker already in his bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed in a t-shirt and track pants, working through a few fingers of the good Scotch. 

"Go back to your quarters," Stacker says, looking up and seeing Herc standing in the doorway, dressed in the clothes that Stacker brought for him, holding one of the umbrellas from the stand in the foyer. "Undress and come back." 

...

Stacker sits on the side of the bed, and tells Herc to kneel a good fifteen feet away, feet against the wardrobe, face and shoulders facing Stacker. On his instructions, Herc repeatedly brings himself to the edge of orgasm, but takes his hands away from his dick and balls before he does. Instead, he puts them on his pierced nipples. 

Slowly, the edges of the world blur. His knees hurt. He was, as usual, too excited to sleep on the way to the Academy. On the way back, he was too upset. His thighs ache from five hours of sitting in a too-small seat, followed by not enough walking to loosen his muscles before kneeling. He hasn't had dinner. He is thirsty, and Stacker has him repeat the cycle of touching himself on command and training his body. Eventually, the world and in a way, Herc's body, drops away. They stay arms' length. 

Then, Stacker finishes his drink and puts it down on the night stand. 

"Come here," Stacker says. He puts his right hand down between his legs, palm out towards Herc. 

Without having to be told with words, Herc crawls over to Stacker, hands and knees, dick hard and swaying against his thigh. He lays his face into Stacker's palm. 

...

Stacker turns Herc's face up to him, and Herc looks where he is supposed to. He moves his eyes over the brown skin and the darker eyes, the neat mustache and hair that is trimmed very short and close on the sides, with just a little bit more on top. Stacker tucks his other hand against Herc's other cheek. 

His fingers are a little cool, a little damp, from having held the glass of Scotch with ice in it. 

"Ask for permission to come," Stacker says. 

Herc swallows hard, but says, softly, "Please, may I come, sir."

Then, he waits, kneeling, dick hard, metal gleaming on his chest, face turned up and framed by Stacker's hands. 

"Up on the bed," Stacker says. "Put your hands on the wall."

The relief that Herc feels at the warmth in Stacker's voice -- 

...

Herc is more ashamed of the flood of emotion than the orgasm: on his knees in Stacker's bed, hands pressed flat to the wall over the top of the headboard, and legs wider apart than his shoulders, whining and rocking backwards and trying to shove his ass deeper onto the two fingers that Stacker had inside him, even though they were already buried to the palm. Stacker's other hand kept a vibrator pressed against the base of Herc's balls. Herc could hear the buzz, felt the vibration that went up his spine and knotted inside his chest. Did it help him get off? Or did it slow him down, because Stacker wanted more time to talk to Herc? A little of the first. Some of the second: Stacker tells him over and over, low and close in Herc's left ear, breath warm, that Herc had been good. For Herc, getting to come was a reward for being good. 

"Ask me again," Stacker says. 

Herc is mostly beyond words, but he swallows and manages _please_ , and when Stacker angles his fingers a little, just enough to get a long, ugly moan out of Herc's throat, Herc knows what Stacker wants: he stops trying to get off. Instead, he rides Stacker's fingers and the vibrator in equal parts, even though the vibrator is almost painful, even though the fingers aren't quite enough.

He says, repeatedly, _please_ and _please, sir_ , in equal measures. 

...

Eventually, he earns it. 

Stacker puts down the vibrator and starts to run his free hand over Herc's chest and throat and face while Herc goes on fucking himself on Stacker's fingers. He touches Herc’s lips, and Herc tries to suck two of Stacker's fingers into his mouth, but Stacker pulls his hand away. 

Instead, he shows Herc how neatly his throat fits against Stacker's palm. So does the collar. So do Herc's shoulders, the fine, strong muscles, honed in Stacker's gym and fed with the good food that Stacker has been putting into Herc. Stacker touches the small marks and scars, the old unit tattoo, even the tattoo with Angela's name on a scroll. He puts his palm against the underside of Herc's dick, and Herc moans and drags his hips back, then forwards. Stacker doesn't close his hand, because Herc is so close that Stacker can feel it in every taut muscle pressed against him. 

Instead, he lets Herc have a few thrusts against his palm. The head of Herc's cock is wet with pre-come, almost dripping, and with some of it smeared across his palm, Stacker brings his fingers up to Herc's nipples. They're a little sore, a little warm from Herc playing with them on Stacker's instructions before. Stacker doesn't want to push Herc on this until he is entirely sure they're healed. 

So he limits himself. He flicks the left barbell, feels the way Herc trembles from shoulder to knees. 

Stacker does it one more time, so that he can savor it. 

Then: "You can come now."

Herc gasps, sobs, buries his face against his left arm. 

Does. 

...

Afterwards, lying on his side, in the dark because the techglass hasn't started going transparent yet, tucked up with his head laid on Stacker's chest and their legs together, eyes closed, Herc considers: he doesn't know how, exactly, but he knows that if he asked Stacker in the right way, Stacker might say yes. For example, if Herc had been good, and he picked the right moment, knelt, laid his face against Stacker's thigh and begged. The words would be less important than the tone of his voice and being willing to let Stacker know that he was desperate. 

Stacker could, conceivably, think of it as a reward he could give, as leverage for something Herc hadn’t given him yet. If only Herc could -- 

...

Lying against Stacker, turned on his side with his head on Stacker's chest and one of Stacker's hands resting on his shoulder, one of Herc's arms over Stacker's waist, Herc has to concentrate in order to stay still until the miserable feeling passes. 

How could he bring his son to see this? What kind of father would let -- 

...

Like Chuck, Mako stays at the Academy for summer term. Unlike Chuck, Mako comes home for the break before and after. Stacker makes up the same guest bedroom for her, and he tries to come home early from work, so that they can have long evenings together, eating together, then playing go or watching something on the vidscreen. Herc stays with them, head usually against Stacker's knee. Sometimes, Stacker will send him to the kitchen for more water or to bring the bottle of Scotch from his study. 

One night, at the break at the end of summer, Tamsin comes over for dinner and leaves behind a beautiful silver shawl: she gets cold easily, and Mako offers to take it back to her. She'd like to see Tamsin one more time before she goes back to the Academy. May she take it to Tamsin?

It's morning. They're at the breakfast table. 

Stacker has his coffee in hand, and he considers Mako, long and carefully. 

"Are you sure?" Stacker asks. 

"Yes, _sensei_." 

"Ask Tamsin, and if she says yes, let the office know." 

Mako nods. Then, Stacker adds, coffee still in hand, "Take Herc." 

Kneeling at Stacker's left, Herc is the most surprised person in the room. 

...

"Do you have her address?"

"Yes," Mako says. 

"Have you gone without Stacker or the airshuttle before?"

"No," Mako says and looks, for just a moment, slightly worried.

...

On the way back, the airtrain is boarded by private security. A bored-looking officer in a uniform announces that they are in pursuit of a fugitive, that everyone should remain in place. Passengers are thanked in advance for their cooperation. Then, the officer goes down the aisle, swiping ID's into a portable tablet while soldiers in combat suits stood at the doors, plasma rifles in hand, helmets d own. A third trailed behind the officer. Gray suits, electric blue between the plates rather than Jaeger navy with dark red between the plates, or Forces olive all over. Older model, close-range rifles and hip-holster handguns. P19's and the Z10's from the Sandhound line, by Herc's guess. Low-level, standard-issue gear for low-level, standard-issue boots on the ground. 

When Herc turns to Mako to make sure she has her identcard out, he finds her rigid with terror. Her face is pale; her breathing is rapid. 

"Miss Mori," Herc says, softly. 

She makes a noise in her throat to let him know that she hears him, but can't take her eyes away from the soldiers. 

The man coming closer to them is in a gray uniform with an electric blue badge. There is a stun baton on his hip, and even though he is bored, even though he looks like he might be twenty years old, if that, all three lights on the side are bright. The baton is powered and charged with enough juice to drop Herc and stop Mako's heart in her -- 

Behind him is an armed soldier in full combat suit, helmet on, faceplate down, rifle in her hands and a pistol on one hip. She is older, Herc thinks. She wears filament-edge blade at her waist; the Kaiju stopped wearing rank insignia even in non-combat situations years before, but what fresh trainee could get away with wearing a weapon like that on a security stop? Senior NCO, Herc guesses, assigned the job of making sure the baby paper officer didn't fuck up too much. 

"Miss Mori," Herc says, softly, "Can you let go of your bag? They need to see your identcard." 

Mako can't stop panting, can't look away, can't move. 

...

"Here is my card," Herc says, carefully, handing his card up and making sure his other hand is flat on his knee. "I'll get Miss Mori's for you." 

The commissioned officer looks irritated, but the NCO behind him doesn't move or shift, so Herc turns and gets the bag from Mako. Her knuckles are white, but she knows what needs to happen: with an effort of will, Mako loosens her grip enough for Herc to slide the bag away. 

The inside is as neat and organized as Herc would have expected. Her bag and wallet are a matching set in the same pretty, bright shade of red. The bag showed a cartoon robot with a watering can taking care of a cartoon flower, and on the wallet, the cartoon flower was in bloom. The robot and watering can were dancing together, and Herc hands Mako's card up for the officer to scan, takes his identcard back. 

Herc gives Mako his left hand to clutch instead of her bag. 

...

When the Kaiju leave and the doors close with a whoosh and the handful of passengers on the car in the middle of the day start to talk again -- Mako is still holding his hand, palm sweating against his, tight enough that he is starting to lose feeling in some of his fingers, but Herc doesn't take his hand away. Instead, he lets her go on holding it. One-handed, he puts first her identcard, then his identcard away, and then Herc says, softly, they have to wait until all the cars in the airtrain are checked. The doors are closed to keep anyone from coming onto a car that has been checked. Does she understand? Mako manages a nod, and when the airtrain starts moving again with a lurch, she buries her face against his arm. Her chest heaves, but she still doesn't make noise. Herc doesn't think he feels actual tears. Nevertheless, Mako comes close, and Herc worries about hyperventilation.

That night, Stacker doesn't come back until late, and when he does, he is tired. Mako has already gone to bed, but Stacker goes to check on her. They spend a few minutes talking.

Herc can hear Mako's voice, quiet, a little sleepy, higher-pitched. Stacker's voice is low. Comforting. 

...

The door is closed, and Herc helps Stacker undress. 

Quietly, Stacker explains: Mako is a brave girl, and sometimes, she tries for too much, too quickly. Her father had been an arms designer who did a few projects for the Jaegers, and when relations were very, very bad a few years back, Kaiju security stopped the airtrain that Mako and her family were traveling on. They ran the identification of everyone in the car, cross-checked them against known Jaeger associates, and pulled Masao and Sumako out from the crowd. They would, Stacker thinks, have pulled Mako too, except that as soon as the Kaiju boarded and Mako's mother saw the gray combat suits with the bright seaming, she told Mako to hide in the luggage compartment under their seat and stay inside no matter what she heard, no matter what promises anyone made. Mako-chan was not to come out until the train started to move again. 

Mako hid, but because she was curious, because she was seven years old, she kept the compartment door open a tiny, tiny fraction. 

Just enough to see her parents executed. 

Trade relations had been rough, were getting rough again. 

...

Herc thinks of Mako's mother, telling her not to come out until the train started to move again.

Herc thinks of Mako pressing her face against his arm, holding his left hand with both of hers, when the train lurched forward.

...

Stacker is willing to believe that what Herc and Mako ran into during the afternoon was a random search, that there actually was Kaiju security had actually been in pursuit, and that the decision was to make a minor display of strength and no more. Stacker doesn't think that there had been much danger of actual violence. Things were not yet at the stage where anyone would risk it, let alone violence that would be a direct, personal insult to Stacker. 

Let alone Tamsin, Stacker adds. 

Herc looks up when he hears the grim satisfaction in Stacker's voice. He thinks of the way Tamsin smiles at Mako, the way when she came to have dinner at Stacker's, she brought dinner from a restaurant, three large black lacquer boxes of sushi and sashimi made from actual, whole fish, rice so white it gleamed. Expense like that, paid out not at a banquet for status, but in private, because Tamsin wanted to reward Mako for doing well at the Academy -- Herc thinks about the way Tamsin saw them to the door that afternoon. Mako had hugged her, and Tamsin offered to send security with them. 

Mako politely declined, and Tamsin accepted that. Nevertheless, the expression on Tamsin's face, the way she kissed Mako on the top of her head and pressed her cheek to Mako's hair -- 

Who had Tamsin Sevier lost to the Kaiju? 

...

Still, Stacker says. From now on, when Herc goes to visit Chuck at the Academy, Stacker will send him in the airshuttle.


	19. Chapter 19

For the last afternoon before she is due back at the Academy, Stacker promises to take Mako out for a lunch and an afternoon with just the two of them. If the weather was relatively comfortable and clear, they would go to one of the parks outside the Tower. If it was raining, they would go down to one of the recreational areas located inside. The aquarium? Maybe the science museum in Tsim Sha Tsui? Herc knows that Mako had been looking forward to it all week. 

Instead, Stacker spends it in his study, taking call after call: a convoy of Jaeger cargo transporters had been attacked the night before, and information was still coming in. 

...

Mako says, softly, that she apologizes for what happened on the train. She anticipated that Kaiju forces might search the train, and she thought that she would not be afraid. She was wrong. 

Herc tells her that he understands. The Kaiju killed his wife, he says. 

Mako takes the information, blinks, files it quietly and respectfully away: they are sitting next to each other on a bench in the roof garden, not the one that Stacker tied Herc to for the dinner party, but one further down the path, in a small area arranged to catch the view of the Towers further down the mountain. There is a bench and a table for working or eating, but also clear space for caterers or a bartender to set up for guests. Herc knows that on sunny days, if the house senses someone coming down the path to this area, it will deploy a mechanism to raise an umbrella that provides shade.

The day is overcast, and Herc points. 

"Look," he says. Mako follows his hand. 

"A Cherno-DX heavy cruiser and three Typhoons in escort formation," Herc tells her. 

...

A few minutes later, Stacker comes into the garden, pulling a suit jacket on, sounding rushed. He says that he is headed into the office and will not be back until late. Things are happening quickly; he has to be there, and he is half-turned to go back down the stairs when he sees Mako's face and abruptly stops. Stacker makes himself slow. He visibly takes a breath -- Herc sees the effort that Stacker takes to pause, then apologize. 

Quietly, Stacker tells Mako that he will make it up to her. 

Mako considers his words, but ultimately sets aside the book in her lap and stands and bows to him: she says it is unnecessary. This a serious matter, she says. _Sensei_ belongs at the office. 

Then, softly, with her face turned up to Stacker, she asks. They'll have the flight out tomorrow, won't they? 

The look of pride on Stacker's face -- 

...

Stacker is proud of his daughter, and Herc sees that Stacker's natural inclination is to pull Mako close and hug her tightly before he goes. At the same time, Stacker is conscious of Mako's dignity. Her reserve. Her seriousness, and how she is trying to support him in a difficult time when this is hard already for her -- the afternoon was a reward for doing well at the Academy during the summer term. Tamsin brought her favorite pieces of sushi and sashimi, and Stacker was going to take her for an afternoon of fun. How many afternoons a year did Mako have away from the Academy? During how many of those afternoons did she have Stacker's undivided attention? 

Instead, Mako stands with her hands by her sides and tells Stacker it is alright. She understands there are greater concerns at hand, and Stacker inclines his head towards her. Mako bows back to him. 

That night, Herc and Mako eat dinner together, sitting at the dining table, vidscreen showing the news with the sound turned low. 

"It's _sensei_ ," Mako says, and Herc turns the volume on the vidscreen up so that she can hear. 

...

"So?"

Herc looks at his son. They're in the astronomy building, sandwiches and crisps and chocolate spread between them. Rain runs down the glass dome over their heads. 

"You work for somebody with the Jaegers," Chuck says, pushing. "Come on, Dad. You know more." 

"We’re not friends." 

Chuck screws up his face. "He lets you use his airshuttle." 

Herc looks at Chuck, sitting on one of the chairs from the work terminals, wearing his dark blue Academy uniform and leaning forward, eyes bright with eagerness. His birthday present is by their feet: a tidy set of microsolder tools for Chuck to use in engineering during the year, so that he doesn't have to use the class set. 

...

How much does a private airshuttle cost? Plenty of money to begin with, even second hand, but the fees associated with them are the real difficulty: licensing, clearances, fuel. Regular maintenance to ensure safety. Upgrades to match revised safety requirements. Where, in a rental unit in a Tower apartment, was the room to keep something like that? 

Before, on his Forces salary, with a wife and child to support and retirement to put money away for, how could they have afforded one? 

Going to the Academy by airtrain takes five hours each way and multiple transfers. In the private airshuttle, Herc sits down, closes his eyes if he wants to, and wakes up an hour and a half later with the in-vehicle system chiming gently to let him know that they are approaching the designated landing area: would he like to secure himself against the possibility of turbulence? 

... 

Besides tuition and full room and board, there are uniforms for two weeks of class and drill, so that one week's worth could be worn while the other is being laundered. Chuck could have worn his uniforms from the year before, but he doesn’t fit into them, and Herc had bought the cheapest ones in the catalogue, so they couldn't be let out. Also: laundry fees. Also: a dress uniform now that he was a second year, for which the Academy strongly recommended tailoring and would be bringing a recommended vendor to the site prior to the start of term. Did Herc want to put his son's name down for a fitting session with them? 

Texts. Material lists. Lab fees. Personal items, like toothpaste and a washcloth and towels. Money in the commissary for trips to get his hair cut. 

A weeklong trip to Shanghai Tower for a robotics competition as part of the engineering course. 

...

Herc knows that the start of a new school year means a year under contract, and it occurs to him that Stacker might want to celebrate: something in Herc flinches from the idea. 

What would Stacker do for him? Throw a party? Bring him a present? None of those are appealing, and the idea of Stacker picking and choosing something meant to give Herc _enjoyment_ makes Herc's stomach twist with something he can't identify. Instead, Herc is grateful when Stacker lets the date pass without mentioning it -- Stacker goes to work, comes home, eats his dinner and hand-feeds Herc. He seems absent-minded and has Herc suck him off while Stacker leans against the back of the couch. He puts his fingers in Herc's mouth afterwards, has Herc look him in the eye and smears a mix of spit and come over Herc's cheeks, but then gives Herc the rest of the night to spend as he wants. Stacker will be in his study, on a series of calls. 

Herc goes back to quarters, rinses his mouth out, washes his face off, showers, and lies down in the dark. He tries to clear his mind and not think about anything. 

Eventually, he falls asleep. 

...

Nevertheless, without intending to, Herc gives Stacker an anniversary present: five weeks after the start of the new term, a week after telling Chuck, honestly, that he didn't know anything more about worsening relations between the Jaeger and Kaiju, three days after Stacker comes back from a trip to Seoul Tower to deal with recent difficulties there -- Herc is bent over Stacker's desk for being slow to respond verbally. The kneeling pad is still on the floor by Stacker's chair, and Stacker had to clear his work off the desk, stacking the tablets and putting them to the side. Herc's track pants are down around his ankles, and light comes in through the window while Stacker works him with the usual cane. It isn't going to be a hard beating, but three strokes into the first set, Stacker hears Herc whine. 

He sees Herc shift in a way that Herc hasn't done before. 

Stacker stops, and Herc makes the noise again. Cane in hand, Stacker looks Herc, who is naked from the waist down. His shoulders are drawn up around his ears, and his face is flushed from pain, but the expression on it is new. Novel. 

When he slides his hand between the desk and Herc's hips, Stacker confirms for himself with a rush of delight and pleasure: Herc is half-hard from being beaten. 

...

Stacker wants Herc to learn that obedience brings a reward, so he finishes the set out, then tells Herc that he can have another set if he asks for it. 

Herc hesitates, but he knows what the answer is supposed to be. Stacker's hand is on his dick, touching him lightly, keeping him hard after that initial moment produced by the fact that his body has, over the course of a year, been carefully taught to correlate attention from Stacker with orgasm: attention that brings that pain, attention that brings pleasure, attention that Herc has to ask for, attention where he has to bite down the _no_ that he isn't allowed anymore but also remember, simultaneously, not to hold back his cries of pain. 

Stacker has made a point of making sure that Herc has gotten off after each of these. 

... 

Bent over the desk, a year into a ten year contract, legs burning and breath short in his lungs, Stacker's hand cupping his balls, Herc knows what is expected of him. 

"Please, sir," Herc manages. 

Stacker takes his hand away. 

"Keep your legs apart," Stacker tells him. "I won't hurt you more than you can take." 

Mouth pressed against the wood of the desk, Herc makes a noise. 

...

 _Please, sir_ , Herc says, and for being good, for asking, for the fact that Herc is not a trained sex contractor, intentionally conditioning himself to enjoy the things that his client does to him, but nevertheless has submitted himself to Stacker bringing him to that place -- Stacker has Herc turn over on the desk afterwards, so that his legs hang off the edge. Then, Stacker pushes the hem of Herc's shirt up. 

He tells Herc to keep the cane balanced on his stomach while he gets himself off, or he'll get more strokes. 

"Look at me," Stacker says, turning Herc's face towards him. 

This time, there isn't anything to muffle the noises Herc makes.


	20. Chapter 20

Chuck asks to come home for Christmas.

...

Chuck asks to come home for the Lunar New Year: the school empties, and no classes are scheduled for a week. 

...

Herc considers his options. Chuck wants time away from the Academy, and Herc can read between the lines. On calls, Chuck never mentions doing things with friends. When Herc comes to visit, he sees groups of cadets going by with the same set of badges at the sleeves and shoulders, meaning they're part of Chuck's year and section respectively, but none of them wave to Chuck. Chuck doesn't give any sign of knowing them or wanting to know them. All of the things that he takes pleasure in showing Herc are solitary: the robots he is building in lab, the progress his name is making up the red-and-black leader charts at the front of the hall for second-year students. 

Herc knows. Are all of Chuck's bruises from sparring class? Even if they are, his son is lonely and angry and friendless and motherless and thirteen years old and smarter than he has any right to be. 

He wants to be with his father. 

...

One night, Herc wakes because of noise in the house, and when he comes out to the great room, he sees Stacker's briefcase sitting by the coat rack. The light gray topcoat that Stacker wore into the fog in the morning is hung up, but -- where are the shoes? Noise is also coming from the gym, so Herc continues through and finds Stacker on a weight bench, dress shirt off, suit jacket off, but undershirt on and dress shoes and suit trousers on. Stacker uses the gym at the office, Herc knows. 

Wordlessly, he goes over to spot Stacker.

...

Afterwards, Stacker sits up and tells Herc, quietly, tired, that it will be on the news in the morning: there was a Jaeger raid on a Kaiju factory north of Manila Tower. There was resistance, with casualties on both sides. Consequently, Stacker expects escalation. If things get substantially worse, Stacker says, he plans to bring Mako home from the Academy. 

If that happens, what will Herc do with his son? 

"Can you send him to your brother?" Stacker asks. 

"No, sir." Herc has thought about this before and extensively, but he is still careful with his words. He shakes his head to underline the point. "I don't know where Scott is." 

"We can find out."

"Thank you, sir, but no."

Herc’s pause is measured, perfectly timed -- not rushed, not slow, and Stacker considers Herc's face, then decides to drop the subject: he hands the towel to Herc to put in the laundry bin and tells Herc to wipe the equipment down, then find him in the shower. 

...

Herc remembers the moments before his first riot line: seventeen, two months out of training, the Slums north of Jakarta because the Forces don’t let you do your first tour in the place you grew up. Herc was on a troop transport with three dozen others, combat suit, crowd control shield. _Faceplates down, ladies and gents,_ says the squad leader, speaking into the audio circuit in their helmets to make sure that she could be heard over the crowd noise.

Something hit the side of the transport. Bottle, probably. Small piece of concrete curbing possibly. Food shortages, electricity rationing. Rumors of a cholera outbreak in the lower part of the Slums, where recent typhoon-induced flooding had disrupted water supply. 

_Nothing Crossers like us can't handle,_ the squad leader says. 

The gate goes up. 

...

"You want ham and cheese?" 

Chuck shakes his head.

"Egg salad?"

Chuck shakes his head again, but takes the vending machine, cheese and yeast spread sandwich that Herc hands him. They're in the astronomy lab: through the glass half-dome, the sky is clear and blue above. The weather is fine, comfortably warm without being hot, and they could be eating outside, but Chuck sat down, stubbornly, on the platform ringing the two-story telescope in the center of the dome. He didn't want to climb to the outside balcony. He didn't want to eat elsewhere. 

Herc watches his son, trying to see if Chuck moves stiffly or has bruises or -- Chuck notices and becomes more sullen, more stubborn. As a result Herc leaves without being shown the upgrades that Chuck has made to Max to prepare the first round of the competition in Shanghai in two weeks. Chuck is upset about not being allowed to live with Herc for the week between the spring and summer terms, and at the end of the visit, Herc tries to explain, for tenth or eleventh time. There are no dormitories. He doesn't have regular shifts or hours. There is no provision in his contract for leave or vacation. 

A month later, Mako comes home for that week. Herc hears her tell Stacker, delighted, that Tamsin has agreed to come over for dinner. 

...

Stacker gives Herc the rest of the day off to spend in his own quarters, and Herc comes out late in the afternoon for food: Stacker and Mako are in the kitchen, and for the first time since Herc has been in the house, it smells like cooking, not food prepared elsewhere and brought in to be warmed. There is a chicken in a tray for roasting; Mako is carefully cutting carrots and celery with enormous precision. Stacker wears an apron, and Herc watches Stacker pour the potatoes out of the pot and into a metal colander: clouds of steam go billowing towards the ceiling, and the fan system for the kitchen automatically switches on with a quiet whir. 

Stacker steps back, hands on his hips. 

Herc slips in behind Stacker and Mako and gets a container from the refrigerator to eat in his room. 

...

Herc remembers his first riot line; Herc remembers the first time he did Slum clearance, kicking down doors while in combat suit and gear and helmet, checking underneath beds and inside bathroom partitions for idents on their locate list. Herc remembers the first time he came under fire, the first time he ran a squad. Herc remembers the first time Angela made him a home cooked meal, that pretty little apartment with the white tile in the kitchen and the bathroom with the leaky shower head that he fixed for her: how he tried to explain to her that it hadn't just been a long time since he'd been home. Even when his mother had been alive, where would she make a dinner like this? He grew up in the Slums, in a series of cheap weekly rentals that sometimes didn't have a microwave, let alone a cooking range or an oven or a refrigerator big enough to keep ingredients in. Where would they have kept pots and pans? How would they have moved them between rentals? When would anybody have had the energy or time to cook? 

Instead, store-bought and school lunches when he was young, then protein blocks and nutrient bars, pre-packaged, when he in the Forces, and Herc, grateful for every bite. 

...

Herc remembers taking Scott for his unit tattoo: Herc was twenty, four years in and running a six-person squad. Scott was seventeen, his probation assignment freshly turned permanent, and appropriately drunk on celebratory synthetic alcohol from a Forces bar. The stuff was strong enough to take the paint off the side of a troop carrier, but even if you put a flare inside a crate of it, it wouldn't catch fire. A safety precaution, to keep it from being used an incendiary that could be thrown down a stairwell at, say, Forces coming up in riot gear. 

Rain on the glass of the Slum storefront behind them, the space crowded with friends of his, friends of Scott, friends of other people in their unit getting their marks done. Neon lights from the sign outside, Scott pulling his shirt off, winking at the pretty tattoo artist. Halfway through his tattoo, Scott started singing the unit anthem, and Herc started laughing at him, but by the end, the whole store was singing with Scott. He even got the pretty tattoo artist who inked him, closer to Herc's age than Scott's, to meet him at the bar next door after her shift. 

...

The tracker chip came out of Herc's arm without anesthesia, and they didn't give him dermal regeneration afterwards. 

He assumes Scott has a similar scar. 

...

Herc has memories of good times with his marks, remembers Angela's fascination with it because she'd never known anybody who'd intentionally had their skin done up with ink, and her mix of delight and horror when he put her name on his arm during his stag weekend. _Did it hurt? If you take off your jacket at the wedding, will people be able to see it through your shirt?_

These days, Herc remembers, too, the time he was sucking Stacker off in front of the mirrors in the dressing room and Stacker pulled Herc's mouth off him. 

"Put your wrists behind you," Stacker said, and awkwardly, a little startled, Herc shifted his hands. He'd been gripping Stacker's ankles as they'd practiced over the weekend. 

"Turn your head. Keep your eyes open -- I want you to look at yourself," Stacker said. 

Herc remembers. Herc -- 

...

Herc remembers looking at himself in the mirror, wrists crossed in the small of his back, body framed by Stacker's legs on either side with Stacker's wet dick above and Stacker's hand on his collar and all of Stacker's suits and shirts and neatly lined up expensive shoes in the room with them. All in all, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars spent to make Stacker look good at the office, and Herc on his knees, naked to make Stacker feel good at home. Herc watched Stacker's hand move over him: grip his jaw for a moment, right at the back where the muscle was, then let go. Stacker touched the freckles on Herc's shoulders, then the back of his neck. 

High on Herc's shoulder, in ink that had been touched up from time to time to keep it fresh, were the four stars of the Southern Cross with light shining out from behind them. Herc had been so proud of earning them at seventeen. 

"Keep your hands behind you," Stacker said and turned Herc's face back towards his dick. "Ask me to come on your face." 

...

An hour and a half into his evening off, when the refrigerator meal is still coming up to room temperature on the desk next to his terminal and Herc is turned on his side in bed, half-asleep over a rugby tournament -- there is a knock at his door. Herc puts down the tablet, gets out of bed, and walks over. It's the first time anyone has knocked on his door in over a year and half, and when he opens it, Herc finds Stacker is standing on the other side, apron off. 

Over Stacker's shoulder, Herc can see the light from Stacker's study, flooding in through an open window, and Herc can also smell the roast chicken and the potatoes. The vidscreen is on, and Tamsin is talking to Mako, but Herc can't make out the words. 

In clipped, precise phrases, Stacker tells Herc that there has been a Kaiju bombing of a Jaeger factory facility outside Seattle Tower. Casualty numbers will be significant. He and Tamsin are going into the office on a Jaeger secure transport that will be coming by the house shortly. 

Stacker understands that he gave Herc the rest of the night off, but will Herc stay with Mako? 

It’s okay if Herc doesn’t want to, Stacker adds as an afterthought. Mako will stay with the security officers that come with the transport if he doesn’t. 

...

"Chuck Hansen is your son, isn't he?" 

"Yes." 

A pause. "Does he know about your contract?" 

The house is quiet, and the last of the sunset comes through the windows that run along the side of the great room. Stacker and Tamsin have left; Herc and Mako ate the roast chicken with gravy and currant jelly and new potatoes and rolls while sitting on the couch, waiting for the first news reports. 

Tamsin brought a cake; it's four inches high, eight across, more cake than three people could possibly eat and made with real butter and real cream and eggs and sugar, Herc guesses. When he was cutting up the chicken, Mako explained that it was chocolate with chocolate frosting and hazelnuts on top. The pretty swirls of frosting on top were Japanese, and they meant CONGRATULATIONS MAKO. 

...

Sitting in the warm, golden sunset light, Herc thinks about the fact that Mako is thirteen, a handful of months older than Chuck. 

How much does she know what he does for Stacker: how much did he know at thirteen? Stacker has Herc kneel by him when he eats dinner with Mako and will occasionally have Herc eat from his hand, but leaves the rest for after Mako has gone back to her room for the night. Herc sleeps in his own quarters at night, and Herc kneels in the foyer, but keeps his shirt on. In fact, Mako usually comes and stands in the foyer, too. A cultural thing, Herc thinks, because she half-bows to Stacker, and he smiles back at her and talks to her while hanging his coat and putting his gloves away and touching, briefly but intimately, the tips of his fingers to Herc's mouth and face. 

Stacker is noticeably happier when Mako is there. Herc sees the shift in Stacker's posture, the change in his face, every time he opens the door and sees them both there. 

Mako asks, quietly, whether Chuck knows about Herc's contract. 

"He doesn't know the exact details," Herc says. 

There is a long moment of silence. 

Herc knows Mako is studying him carefully, picking up the tense line of his shoulders and the color on his face. The sun from the glass that runs along the side of the great room is in his eyes, but Mako has her back to it. There are no windows in Herc's quarters. 

"I understand, Mr. Hansen," Mako tells him, and the expression on her face, the tone of her voice, is gentler than any thirteen year old's should be. 

Part of Herc resents the fact that a thirteen year old school girl feels obligated to be _kind_ to him.

...

How many students are there in each year at the Academy? Roughly two hundred. 

How bad is it to be a sex contractor? Not embarrassing for the person who hires one. Stacker doesn't think twice about having Herc kneel next to him for dinner with his daughter. At twelve, at thirteen, Mako understands the rules for dealing with the sex contractors of close family. Tamsin, with her family that has spent generations on top of the socioeconomic order, with history between her and Stacker that Herc is only starting guess at, knows the rules well enough to break them. 

Stacker and Tamsin are preparing to leave, and Stacker is helping Tamsin into a simple black coat that cost more than a year's rent on the first place Herc and Angela ever rented in a Tower, and leaning on the cane with one hand, Tamsin threads her other hand through a sleeve. 

Then, she stops. 

She looks up, and without asking Stacker for permission to speak to his contractor, even though Stacker is holding her coat for her because not only is her bad leg visibly trembling, but so are her hands -- she turns to Herc, and there is no tremble in her voice. Her face is hard, set in a way that Herc hasn't seen before: with Stacker, she is usually amused. With Mako, she is kind. Loving, particularly in moments when Mako can't see it. 

The expression she turns to Herc doesn't have any of those elements. 

Instead, she says, clearly, "Keep Mako safe." 

Stacker continues to hold her coat out for her, and Tamsin bends, laboriously, back to the job of getting her shaking hands through the sleeves. 

Herc understands that she doesn't just mean -- 

...

Tamsin Sevier is direct. Straightforward. She doesn't make _requests_. Even when her body is going to pieces around her, she remembers social rules and steps over them with assurance. When Herc looks to Stacker, Stacker nods infinitesimally, then draws the right sleeve up the rest of the way up Tamsin's arm to her shoulders. 

...

After they go, Mako and Herc sit together on the couch and watch the coverage of the bombing, and eventually, Herc falls asleep. When he wakes again, it's late. The house system sensed they were both asleep and turned the sound down and dimmed the lights, and in the half-light, Herc gets Mako a blanket from Stacker's bedroom. He comes back to the great room and tucks it carefully around her, then goes through the house, checking the security envelope. 

When he comes back to the great room, Mako is awake, but still tucked under the blanket. 

"Did _sensei_ ask you to stay with me?" Mako asks, drowsy. 

"So did Tamsin," Herc answers, and he sits down, close, but not too close to Mako: a little more than an arm's length away, so that if he makes her uncomfortable, she can go back to sleeping against the couch, or she can get up and go to her bedroom. Instead, Mako slides a little closer, and after her own moment to let him move away, she leans her head against his shoulder. Herc puts his arm around her. 

Eventually, despite the images on the vidscreen, face pressed against Herc's upper arm and his resting gently against her hair, Mako goes back to sleep.

...

Eventually, the next morning, Stacker comes home, alone, tired, voice strained. There have been developments. It'll be too dangerous for Mako to go back to the Academy for the summer session, but she'll be able to take all her classes remotely

What does Herc want to do with Chuck?


	21. Chapter 21

Angela died when --

...

Angela died when -- 

...

Sunlight paints the walls of Stacker's bedroom, but doesn't reach the floor. Stacker is tired. His voice is scratchy, and he rubs his face as though parts of it have gone numb. Nevertheless, he plans to take a shower, change his clothes, and go back to the office. There will be food for him there; the armored Jaeger transport that brought him waits on the pad outside with armed guards. Consequently, Stacker steps into the shower and Herc clears from the bathroom floor the clothes that Stacker had been wearing and puts them into the appropriate cleaning bins. Then, he goes to the dressing room and lays out the good charcoal spring-summer suit that Stacker asked for, plus the three ties that Stacker usually wears with it, plus a white shirt, a change of underwear, socks. When the water turns off, Herc goes back to the bathroom. Does Stacker want him for anything else? 

Stacker is naked underneath the white towel around his waist to keep him from dripping onto the floor. There are drops of water on his bare shoulders, and Herc is wearing one of the soft, long-sleeved shirts that Stacker bought him. He has the left shoe from Stacker's best pair of black wingtips in one hand and polishing cloth in the other. A mirror runs along one side of the bathroom from the countertop to the ceiling. There are, Herc knows, heating elements that run underneath the glass that keep it from fogging, and after Herc comes in, Stacker says that the official statement is that the kaiju have killed thirty-two and wounded eighty, with production set back by three months. Then, Stacker adds that Herc was in the Forces. 

He can guess what the real numbers might be. 

In the mirror, Stacker looks tired but calm. He braces his hands on the counter and looks at Herc.

Herc has lived with Stacker for almost two years. He knows even before the words are out of mirror-Stacker's mouth: the Jaegers have made the decision not just to respond, but escalate. 

...

Turning around, so that his back is to the mirror and his front is towards Herc, holding the towel on his hip with one hand, Stacker says that odds are, Chuck will be safe at the Academy. There will be children from unaligned trading houses at the summer term. At this point, Stacker does not believe that anyone is considering, as he puts it, _expanding the field of engagement_. There is also an informal tradition of the Academy remaining neutral ground: nobody wants to be the first to bloody the school steps. Almost every trading house sends the children of their elite there. 

On the other hand, Herc knows that Mako is fixing herself breakfast in the kitchen, will not be going back to school until the situation has cleared. She will be spending the rest of the summer under all the protection that Stacker's influence and Tamsin's power and Jaeger strength can provide for her. Things would, Herc imagines, have to get very bad indeed for the Kaiju to try. Things would have to be almost incomprehensibly terrible for them to have any chance of succeeding. 

Herc breathes out slowly, carefully, notes the fact that he hasn't been calling Stacker _sir_ during this conversation, and that Stacker hasn't disciplined him for it out. 

"Will Chuck be safer away from the Academy?" Herc asks. 

"Depends," Stacker says. "Are you considering your brother?"

Herc grimaces and looks away. 

...

Who cares about the son of Stacker Pentecost's sex contractor? Nobody except for his father. Standing in the bathroom, seeing the expression on Stacker's face, Herc realizes that Stacker is offering because if Chuck is kidnapped, if Chuck is taken by the Kaiju, there is nothing that the Jaegers will do for him. 

Chuck is thirteen, and Angela died when -- 

...

The world is a hard place, and there is only one place where Stacker can promise Herc that efforts would be taken for Chuck's safety. 

Consequently, from their respective sides of the bathroom, Herc and Stacker look at each other. Eventually, Herc takes the shoe and polishing cloth back to the bedroom. He finishes shining both shoes, left first, then the right. Stacker trims his mustache and brushes his teeth and puts on deodorant, then comes out into the bedroom where Herc dresses him, doing the buttons on Stacker's right sleeve, letting Stacker get the rest, but also kneeling when Stacker sits on the side of the bed and putting the shoes on Stacker's feet and tying the laces for him. 

When Stacker is washed and groomed and dressed and has put a cup of coffee in himself, he says goodbye to Mako. 

Then, two aircraft rise from the landing pad in front of the house. Each goes straight and vertical into the blue sky, but the armored Jaeger transport takes Stacker to the office, and the personal airshuttle takes Herc and a just-in-case pair of guards from Jaeger security to the Academy. 

...

Chuck is thirteen now, but Herc remembers smoke. Herc remembers fear. Herc remembers shoving his way through a crowd to the old-fashioned solid state vidscreen in the break room and seeing three separate long streaks of smoke rising into the sky. A woman behind him asked, _Do they know what it is?_ Someone answered that media weren't saying whether it was trading-house related or a major systems malfunction, and Herc remembers feeling his chest hurt. 

Scott pulled him out in the hall. 

"Grid is jammed, and nobody is running rescue. I have a friend in the Flight Corps with a private vehicle who owes me a favor." 

...

Herc remembers that their apartment had been on the seventh floor. Herc remembers thinking that Angela might get out by heading down the stairs; Herc remembers thinking that she might not even be at home if she'd gone to the shops. Chuck would be at school; the school was on the thirty-fourth floor. Thirty-four floors in the dark and choking smoke, with terrified teachers and hundreds of frightened students and tens of thousands of other residents, all fleeing. Schools in the Towers practiced evac, didn't they? But how much did they practice? Towers weren't supposed to collapse. 

He remembers the way the sky looked through the front panel of the vehicle, clear and blue where it wasn't stained with smoke. 

Scott shouted to be heard over the sound of the engine -- a friend owed him a favor, and the interior of the airshuttle had been stripped. 

"Where do we go?" 

"Up," Herc remembers saying. 

He remembers the way the floor shook from the engine; he remembers the way Scott looked at him. Herc remembers the way Scott had gripped his shoulder briefly, then turned to the pilot and and yelled so that Herc wouldn't have to repeat himself. 

...

The Forces kept the Slums in line; Towers dealt with each other. There is an evacuation plan in place for Stacker's house with both Tower and Jaeger security; if neither of those are in place, there is a panic room that doubles as an evacuation pod complete with its own antigrav thrusters, force-field shielding, and life support system. Stacker tells Herc that he had it put in when Mako came to live with him, that it will hold four comfortably and six at a pinch. 

...

Chuck comes _home_ for the summer term.


	22. Chapter 22

Chuck has the strap of his duffel bag over his chest. On their way out of the building, after talking to the headmaster and putting his thumb to papers and acknowledging that he'll only get half of the summer term's room and board back and none of the tuition refunded since Chuck will continue to be enrolled and attend class via vidlink -- Herc pulls Chuck into an empty classroom. There are rows of terminals around a teacher's podium in the center. Mid-afternoon light comes through the windows running along the curved back of the room. 

Herc crosses his arms over his chest. Chuck still looks happy. Excited. 

"You’ll have questions," Herc says. He knows his voice sounds rough. "Ask 'em now." 

... 

"How long will it be?" 

"Rest of the summer term. Maybe longer."

"Does this have to do with the Jaegers and Kaiju?" 

"Yes." 

"Because the Kaiju hit the Mark-III Romeo production facilities last night?" 

It's Herc's turn to be surprised, and he blinks at Chuck. 

"Yes. Anything else?" 

"Did you get an apartment?" 

"We're staying in the house of the man who has my contract. You have your own bedroom, and you'll be taking classes by vidlink along with Mako Mori. Know her?"

Chuck makes a face, then considers. "Mori's dad is Stacker Pentecost. You work for him?" 

Herc nods, slowly. How does -- 

"Is she going to boss me around?" 

"Does she try at school?" 

This makes Chuck look annoyed, and Herc is reminded of Angela. The way Chuck subsequently ignores Herc's question reminds him of Angela, too -- Herc grins a little, and he sees Chuck's face screw up when a new thought occurs to him. 

"Is he going to boss me around?" 

It takes a long, long moment for Herc to answer, and when he does, he picks words carefully. "No. But you'll bloody well behave yourself anyways." 

...

Still, Chuck is excited on the ride back: it's his first time away from the Academy in twenty months, and it's by private airshuttle. Ang's parents had one, but not like this: wide windows, seating for six, modern inertial control system, facilities for manual nav override up front. Chuck sticks his head into the cockpit before lift-off, then comes back and plants himself at the left-hand window to watch the landscape underneath them and call out the makes and models and modifications of other vehicles they pass. At one point, Herc sees one of the guards look at the other. They exchange a look, and Herc bites down on -- 

Without turning from the window, Chuck says, "Old Jaeger Cherno. Shape of the fins, it's probably a LX, right? " 

...

There are two guest bedrooms, and every time she comes home, Mako takes the one with morning sun. Consequently, Chuck takes the one that gets afternoon sun: otherwise, the rooms are mirror images. Bed wide enough for two with the headboard set against the shared wall. Dresser, desk with a terminal, armchair in the corner with a lamp for reading. Bare walls, neutral coloured rug underneath the bed. 

It's a room for adults, a temporary space for people passing through, and Herc wonders how it worked before Mako left for the Academy. After all, Stacker will bend for Mako. Stacker and Tamsin try to give Mako what she want; Herc has seen the small, sweet things that Mako likes. The bag and purse that she was carrying on the train when they were stopped by Kaiju security, for example, with the robot and the water pot and the flower. The pale blue pencil case she has out while doing supplemental work, decorated with hearts and cartoon rabbits.

...

Years later, Herc finds out that before she went to the Academy for her first term, Stacker offered to keep her room exactly the way it was. She would always have a place with him.

Instead, Mako asked, starting in Japanese, but switching to English because she wanted to be sure he understood: did he mind putting her things away? Her heart would always be with him, but she wanted to focus on the Academy. 

She was twelve, and -- 

...

The guards stay at the door; Herc carries the duffel bag into the house, and Mako is sitting on the couch in the great room, reading on a tablet. She looks up at Chuck. Chuck looks at her. Neither of them moves. 

Herc says, quietly, "Miss Mori, this is Chuck, my son."

"Chuck, this is Mako."

...

Chuck bangs out of the attached bathroom and looks at the view along the window that runs from one wall to the other. Not techglass, so there are curtains at the side. The armchair in the corner is comfortable. A reading lamp stands on the left. At the right, there is a small side-table with enough room for a coaster. Tucked onto the ledge in front of the window is a small aluminum sculpture with sharp edges. 

"This your room?" Chuck asks. 

"No."

Herc watches Chuck's face and feels his own chest tighten, and when Chuck notices that Herc is watching, Chuck's face flushes and screws up in an ugly way: Chuck was born in a Tower, but not like this. Angela's parents had been so proud when they bought that place on the fifteenth floor with the one large external-facing window in the living room. There is so much empty space in this house; there are so many windows.

There are, in certain rooms, skylights to bring more sunshine into the rooms. Only penthouses have them. 

"C'mere," Herc says, and Chuck doesn't step forward, but doesn't move away, either. 

Herc is awkward, too, but -- 

...

Chuck doesn't want to admit anything. 

Mako sitting calmly on the couch with her books and tablet, a snack on the coffee table in front of her, belonging, comfortable, at home, watching them come in. All that open space, all that sunlight, the guards in the shuttle looking at each other, then checking in via commlink for their next orders rather than asking Herc. Chuck won't say a word about wishing he could share a room with his father -- Herc knows that some part of Chuck assumed they would. The last place they lived together was a studio in a terrible building in the Slums, where they shared a bed that unfolded from the couch. Chuck did his homework at school because there wasn't a comfortable place to do it at home; the bathroom was down the hall and consisted of two toilets, one sink, and a dirty shower shared with the whole floor. 

Standing in the room with the long window on one side, back to the private gleaming bathroom, Herc puts his arm around Chuck's shoulder. He holds Chuck, tightly, and he feels Chuck press his face close. 

Then, Chuck turns his head. 

...

Chuck takes a deep breath, holds it, and then breathes it out. 

Herc lets go. 

...

Herc tells him that Chuck has Mako's bedroom on one side and Pentecost's study on the other. _Stay out of them,_ Herc says. 

Pentecost's bedroom down at the end of the hall, too. 

_Stay out of there, too._

Chuck has recovered enough to look annoyed at the idea that he'd have to be told to keep out of Stacker Pentecost's bedroom. 

Then, Herc shows Chuck the kitchen and the roof garden and the household cleaning drones and how Chuck's palm print has been added to the access list for the panic room. 

...

"So that wasn't your room?" Chuck asks. 

"No."

"Is it like that?"

"No." 

"Why not?"

"You're a guest."

"Where do you sleep?"

"Contractor quarters."

"Can I see?" 

...

It helps that the first time Stacker comes back, the first time the ten-minute arrival chime rings and Chuck is there, Herc and Chuck and Mako are in the roof garden together. The sun is setting, and Chuck and Mako aren't -- as far as Herc can tell, they haven't spoken a single word to each other all afternoon, but they also haven't tried a single thing, either. By Chuck's standards, he is behaving, and when the chime goes, Herc tells both them to stay. He goes downstairs, taking the steps carefully so that he doesn't trip. 

He crosses the great room, and he looks down at the tile floor of the foyer, studies the embossed pattern for a long second. He takes a deep breath. 

He finds his usual place next to the umbrella stand, and he kneels. 

...

"Any trouble getting Chuck?" Stacker asks. 

"No," Herc says, taking Stacker's jacket from him. Stacker's sleeves are rolled up, and Herc can see a little where Stacker has sweated through the shirt, and the lining on the jacket is slightly damp -- Stacker sounds more awake, more alive than when he came home in the morning. Almost a little excited. 

"Do you want dinner?" Herc asks, jacket still over his hands.

Instead, they go to Stacker's bedroom. With the door closed, Herc puts the jacket in the bin for cleaning, and Stacker puts Herc back on his knees, heels against the wall, with Stacker between him and the rest of the room. 

"Straighten," Stacker says, and Herc knows that Stacker means to fuck his throat. 

Face tilted back and towards the ceiling, looking out of the corner of his eyes, Herc watches Stacker lock the bedroom door. 

...

Herc remembers learning to take Stacker in his throat: Herc remembers the slow realization that he was not only going to have to learn to suck Stacker off, but to do it the way Stacker wanted. Did it matter that he'd exchanged a handful of blowjobs when he was twenty? 

First, Herc was going to learn how to take Stacker's come -- how to angle his body to present the part of his body that Stacker wanted to come on, when to close his eyes if Stacker was going to come on his face, how to present it on his tongue and wait for permission to swallow if Stacker came in his mouth. Slow. Thorough. Controlled. Then came the actual mechanics of what to do once Stacker's dick was inside his mouth. Before Stacker was fully erect, what should Herc do with the foreskin? When and where should Herc use the tip of his tongue, when and where to use broad strokes, and when to leave off entirely and concentrate on keeping his mouth tight? Stacker occasionally pulled Herc off his dick and waited until he was mostly soft again before putting him back on. Sometimes, it was to reinforce a point about not doing something. Other times, it was for Herc to practice. Sometimes, Herc knew, it was because Stacker liked to see him panting, back on his heels and frustrated. 

Herc remembers the first time Stacker set him back on his heels, pulled his head back by his hair, and used his fingers to test how much of a gag reflex Herc had.

... 

Herc remembers panting around the fingers buried inside his mouth. Herc remembers how Stacker wanted to see whether the number of fingers in his mouth made a difference, how slick the fingers had been going out of his mouth. Herc remembers the first time Stacker got him to gag on his fingers: hands at his sides, the slow realization of that Stacker wanted to push him, and if Herc was going to vomit, the bathroom tile would make it easier. 

He remembers the first time that he knew what was coming and had to fight down the urge to bite Stacker: he remembers the first time he couldn't keep himself. From the look on Stacker's face, Herc thought he might get backhanded. Instead, though, Stacker let him heave it out, have a drink of water. 

Herc remembers: three fingers, almost all the way to the palm, kneeling between Stacker's legs, trying not to flinch under the fingers of Stacker's other hand, gently stroking his throat from jaw to collarbone. 

... 

Herc remembers kneeling in a corner of Stacker's study, cuffed at the wrist, head tilted back for the silicone dick buried in his mouth. They worked their way up, both in length and girth and time he could keep something close to the back of his throat:a long, long time with his jaw and neck and shoulders and back always, always either aching or the verge of starting to ache while Stacker worked at his desk, frowning, occasionally, writing something or making a note, swiping at his tablet. Every -- Herc doesn't know how much time passed, only that slowly, it would. 

A timer would sound, and Stacker would put his work away and come over. Herc heard the sounds first. The click of tablets being set aside, Stacker pushing his chair back, then the sound of Stacker walking over. Then, a shadow over him, blocking out light from the room. 

"Ask." 

It was hard making noise; it came out, inevitably, as a moan sometimes low in the throat, sometimes high and nasal, varying in intensity and pitch. It depended on how long Herc had been in the corner: Herc remembers that Stacker would wait. Would actually consider for a few long, agonizing beats whether Herc had tried enough to vocalise appropriately affirmative sounds. 

...

Once it was out, Herc could drop his head. Stacker kept him cuffed, but Herc could usually roll his shoulders, pant through his mouth, flex his jaw until it clicked, loosened a little. 

"Water?"

"Please, sir."

Sometimes, depending on how easy Herc had been able to keep his throat, the words came out strained: Stacker would give him as much water as he wanted, but left Herc's mouth unwiped. Occasionally, while Herc got his breath back, Stacker would run his fingers through the spit on Herc's chin and jaw and smear it onto Herc's throat, across his Adam’s apple. Sometimes, he would rub the muscles at the back of Herc's jaw or in his shoulders. His fingers were dry and wide and warm. Almost considerate.

Then: 

"Ready?" 

...

Eventually, Stacker started having Herc ask for his mouth and throat to be fucked. If Herc took his strokes without gagging or heaving, at the end of the session, Stacker turned him over the desk and got him off. The fingers weren't dry anymore, but they were wide and warm and strong. They knew him. 

If Herc managed more than he had the night before, Stacker would get the bottle of lubricant from the bottom drawer of his desk. 

...

In Stacker's bedroom, in the late afternoon, with Herc backed against the wall and his face tilted up. --

Stacker has Herc take his shirt off. 

"Please, sir," Herc says, softly, when asked. 

He can't pretend it's anything except getting his mouth and throat fucked against a wall: there is the way Stacker's dick feels in his mouth, the way Herc has to breathe through his nose, sucking in breath when he can. Stacker hasn't washed since coming back, so there is the smell of musk and sweat, the prickle of Stacker's pubic hair against his face at the bottom of each stroke, the work of remembering to keep his neck straight but not stiff, keep his throat loose even when Stacker is at the top of a stroke, because he won't have time to relax before Stacker starts to push in again. Stacker's balls against his chin and throat, spit running down an even wider stretch of skin, the difficulty of trying to keep his hands from gripping Stacker's knees tighter than he is allowed. 

The world narrows to trying to keep the right position and trying not to gag and trying to use his tongue when he can and trying not to, trying to -- Stacker keeps one hand in Herc's hair. He uses his other to brace himself against the wall. 

Eventually, he shifts one hand back and down, behind Herc's head, so that it won't bang into the wall.

...

Afterwards, in Stacker's bathroom, Herc wipes the spit off his face. Washes his face and hands and throat. Feels the back of his head where it's a little tender from the first few times it hit the wall, but nothing feels particularly wrong, so he cups his hand and drinks some water straight from the tap, puts his shirt back on. Waits for the flush on his cheeks and mouth to die. 

Then, Herc goes up to the roof garden where the sun is halfway over the horizon. 

"Mako, Stacker is asking for you downstairs." 

...

Then: 

"I'm done for the night. What do you want?"

Chuck thinks. "Dinner?"

They sit under the sky for a little longer. Then, Herc heats up two meals in the kitchen, and they eat in Chuck's room, sitting on the bed, watching a vid series on Chuck's school tablet. 

Half way through, worn out, Chuck falls deeply asleep on his side, one arm stretched out in front of him and one arm underneath. Herc watches, but eventually rolls Chuck onto his back, so that he won't wake up when his arm falls asleep. He takes off Chuck's shoes and sets them by the bed. Chuck fights being put under the covers, but is still small enough to be picked up and put underneath. He is young enough to stay asleep while Herc does it, and Herc draws the covers up,and hovers for a moment, debates whether to ruffle Chuck’s hair, then deciding not to risk waking him, turns out the light in the bedroom. 

He leaves a light on in the bathroom in case Chuck wakes up in the middle of the night, disoriented. 

...

In his quarters, Herc pulls up the news on his terminal. Outside, he knows, Mako and Stacker are watching the feed together on the vidscreen in the main room, but Stacker gave him the night to himself, and Herc doesn't want to go out there. Herc also keeps the lights off: his quarters doesn't have windows, but between his alarm clock and the light from the terminal screen. After two years, it's enough. 

The top headline on the news site Herc pulls up is about a woman from Kowloon Tower being rescued after five days trapped inside her aircar. 

...

Is there a distinction anymore between cities and the Towers that constitute them? For cities like Sydney and Honolulu and Seattle, no. Shanghai and Tokyo have more, but Hong Kong is the greatest city on the Rim and stands alone with more than two dozen. After the story about the woman from Kowloon Tower, Herc finds out that the Jaegers retaliated by multi-ship aerial bombardment of three Kaiju pharma production facilities. Casualties? Still coming in. Damage? At least one of the production facilities was still on fire, twelve hours later. 

_Now back to coverage of --_

Herc mutes his tablet and stares at the dark ceiling until he falls asleep. 

...

It helps that Stacker is home for only half of the summer. Typhoon season comes while he is spending two weeks shuttling between Jakarta and Singapore Towers, there and back again, calling home by vidlink when he can. After that it's ten days out of fifteen in Honolulu Tower, where the time difference is enough that he communicates with Mako by message rather than video, and another stretch shuttling between Jakarta and Singapore. 

It helps, too, that when Stacker is in the city, he tends to work late. Chuck has a seven o'clock class five days of the week, and is usually in bed or in his room early. 

If Chuck is in bed when Stacker comes home, the rule is that Herc waits by the door on his knees. 

If Chuck isn't, the concession is that Stacker will get his own dinner. Herc comes to see Stacker once Chuck is asleep. 

...

When Herc comes to Stacker at night, the rule is that he goes to his knees: closes the door if there is a door, locks the door if there is a lock, then drops and comes forward on his knees, hands tucked behind him. He lays his cheek against Stacker's leg if there is room. If there isn't, he comes forward, hands behind him, and stays at Stacker's left until Stacker signals for him to come forward. Parade rest, eyes on Stacker, the slope of his shoulders, the angle of his head, not the scattering of tablets, the figures and words on the screens.

One night, after Honolulu but before Taipei, with typhoon-driven rain on every window of the house, Stacker is reading in the armchair in his study, and Herc comes in, and he closes the door quietly behind him. Locks it, turning the deadbolt, then goes to his knees and comes forward, fingers of his right hand gripping the wrist of his left, the way Stacker likes. There is room for him next to Stacker, so he lays his face against Stacker's thigh. 

Eventually, after finishing the page he is reading Stacker pulls Herc's head up. 

Herc's hair is getting long: he was due to visit Chuck at the start of the summer term, but he hasn't left the house since bringing Chuck to stay.

"Do it again," Stacker says. 

... 

Herc does, lays his cheek in almost the same place as before. Then, after a dozen heartbeats, Stacker pulls him up by the hair: there isn't quite enough to grip, but Stacker has strong fingers, and Herc blinks, breathes out. He expects to be told to get up on the desk or be told bring Stacker one of the canes on the wall: will Stacker let him use his hands? Or will he have to fumble them down from the stand with his mouth? Instead, Stacker sends him back to the door again and has Herc wait, feet underneath, breath fast, while Stacker puts his work away, carefully saving files and tucking the tablet back into its secure case. 

Still kneeling by the closed door, hands behind him, Herc tracks Stacker as he gets up, goes to the stand in the corner and pours himself a drink, then sits back down again. 

...

Herc comes to Stacker once, twice, five, eight times. After almost three years, his knees don't redden easily, but the rest of Herc still makes up for it, especially once he realizes the rules they're playing under, especially once Stacker has him take his shirt off, especially and particularly once Stacker stops using verbal commands: instead, he rests his right hand on the arm of the chair, holds his hand out, palm up, and gestures with two fingers when he wants Herc to come forward. Herc flushes in the face and shoulders. Feels cold in his stomach, but holds still under the hands Stacker puts in his hair and over his mouth and skin and body. 

Stacker turns his palm towards the ceiling and gestures again, two fingers. 

Awkwardly, hands still behind his back, Herc struggles up onto the armchair, so that he is straddling Stacker. 

A typhoon is passing off the shore. Rain beats against the window. 

...

In his quarters afterwards, lights off, door closed, Herc remembers: Angela's parents lived in a Tower and were proud of having a single outside-facing window in their living room.


	23. Chapter 23

One night, Herc and Chuck are on the roof garden. The air is thick during this part of the year, in this part of the world. Storms bring wind and rain, but not relief from the humidity. On the other hand, Herc and Chuck are outside. These aren't the same four walls and ceiling they see in the rest of the day, and Chuck walks to the edge of the roof garden and looks at the curve of the harbor, the lights from the other Towers. There are ones further up on the Peak, but not many; Stacker lives in a part of the city so rich that there are no Slums, only Towers and parks.

Chuck's independent study robotics project is in the garden with them. Herc looks down when it bumps into the back of his left foot. It rolls back a few inches, makes a slight noise as it recalibrates and reorients its gears, then re-aims itself at Chuck: this time, it has identified the correct heat signature, and Chuck reaches down and taps the sensor at the top to let it know. He has been refining an adaptive program, with the idea that Max will learn without Chuck having to sit down at a computer and weed through data results. Chuck tried explaining it in detail, but he was excited.

Also: programming was not heavily emphasized in the schools that Herc went to. What would he have done with that knowledge in the Forces?

And these days --

Fingers still resting against Max's outer assembly, Chuck looks up. His face is lit from below by the small outdoor lights that line the footpaths in the roof garden. Down further, in the entertaining areas, there are better lights for parties and gatherings, but Herc and Chuck are tucked away at the edge, behind a stand of ornamental grass.

Chuck asks:

"Do you think about mum?"

Herc blinks, surprised.

"Yeah," he says, eventually. His voice is soft, and Chuck looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn't, and Herc lets the subject lie.

Instead, he watches Chuck rub Max's top panel.

Above their heads, above the force shield arcing over the roof garden, a Jaeger gunship is in maintenance orbit. Stacker is downstairs, eating a quiet dinner with Mako: in the morning, a Jaeger tactical strike hit a Kaiju administrative center, and Jaeger security is on high, high alert.

...

"You don't leave the house without telling me. You don't go up on the roof without telling me. You eat whatever you want from the kitchen, but you keep out of Mako's bedroom and Stacker's bedroom and study. The house system is keyed so I'm the only one who can let anyone in. A package arrives, you come get me."

Chuck makes a face. "What if I need something from the shops?"

"You tell me, and we order down."

"Food?"

"Service once a week. I've got a menu, and we order from the approved service and nobody else."

Chuck still looks mutinous, but Herc isn't going to say anything about intentionally tainted food sources or bioterrorism being a Kaiju specialty to o his thirteen year old kid.

Instead, Chuck says, as if the idea has just occurred to him -- "What about Mako?"

"What about her? Same rules for her."

Chuck thinks about this, then decides he can live with it if Mako will get into trouble for breaking the rules, too.

Herc sighs.

...

One night, Stacker comes home escorted not just by the usual Jaeger armored transport, but actual, boots-on-the-ground security: it happens late, and Chuck is in bed. So is Mako. The Academy runs morning classes six days a week, and being cooped up in the same house together, being in half the same classes together, has made them wildly competitive. Chuck has a better grade in physics; Mako holds the edge in chemistry, and there is a mid-term in the morning in maths, where they are dead even.

Does Stacker know their testing schedule? Even if he keeps in touch with Mako by vidlink, he is gone half the summer. Herc sits with them day in, day out. Herc is the one who collects dirty laundry and knocks on Mako's door in the morning, waiting outside until he hears her say, drowsy, that she is up, _Thank you, Mr. Hansen._ Chuck gets a knock on the door, followed by Herc opening the door and sticking his head inside, just in case Chuck is answering with covers pulled over his head.

Still, Herc is fairly sure: if it had been earlier, if there was a reasonable chance of Mako being awake, Stacker would never have let Jaeger security in full combat suits come into the house.

...

Instead, Stacker comes home late. After hours, the chime only rings in Herc's quarters, and when it does, he sits up. He pulls on a t-shirt laid over the back of a chair, has a drink of water from a glass he keeps in the bathroom, then makes his way through the house in bare feet. For what it is, Herc is comfortable enough. He has done it enough. He even drowses a little, leaning his shoulder against the side of the double door that Stacker never uses.

One night, while on his knees, shoulder against the door, Herc wakes with a jolt: how long has it been since he was in the Forces?

Through the door, he still recognizes the sound of a safety bolt on a plasma rifle being drawn back.

...

"Where is the panic room?"

Chuck makes a face. "In the hall, across from my door."

"How do you access it?"

"Palm laid flat on the wall."

"When do you go for it?"

"First sign of trouble." Chuck says. "But -- "

"But nothing. The silent alarm goes off, you get there."

...

The door is teak, thick as three fingers are wide on Herc's hand, and Herc recognizes the effect of adrenaline and fear. Instead, he makes himself think: they are on the other side of the door, and they have plasma rifles. If they have plasma rifles, they would have combat suits. If they have combat suits, they would have thermal imaging, and they would know he was on the other side of the door. A plasma bolt burns through wood as easily as air, and with thermal imaging, they would see him go for the silent alarm on the security panel. The bedrooms were too far for him to reach before they came through.

Nothing in the house would stop a fully-powered combat suit, but if he lunged, quickly, before they expected it, he might --

"Herc." Stacker speaks softly, just enough for his voice to carry through the door, just enough for Herc to hear him through the adrenaline.

...

The first body through the door is Jaeger security. So is the second.

Breathing shallow, hands folded on the back of his neck, Herc holds still under the plasma rifle targeting dot on the centre of his chest.

Stacker is third through the door. There are raindrops on his shoulders, and he is holding his briefcase in his left hand: he looks irritated.

...

Stacker says, "You can get up."

Herc gets, a little stiffly, off his knees and onto his feet.

"Hands down," Stacker adds. The technician blinks.

...

Herc thinks about how many times, during his contract, he has been on his knees in front of someone else.

...

Herc thinks about how combat suits looked when powered-up and lit between the seams: in the Forces, elite tactical units occasionally ran dark between the seams, but it was awkward. Unwieldy. Prone to overheating and burnout. Besides, why hide what you were? Deterrence was half the battle; nobody sane went bare-skinned against a combat suit.

The Forces were green. The Jaegers had red, and Kaiju wore electric blue or neon yellow, depending on the exact details of affiliation.

...

Jaeger security brings Stacker through the door and assures themselves of his security. They want to sweep further into the house; they want to check the bedrooms, but Stacker draws a line. When the commanding officer pushes, Stacker tells him no and has them leave: afterwards, Stacker sits down on the edge of his bed, and Herc kneels and comes forward. Carefully, unties the left shoe first, then the right, then crosses back to pull the shoes off: again, in that order. Left first, then right.

When Stacker stretches out his left hand, Herc straightens, but stays on his knees to undo the buttons against Stacker's left wrist.

Then, Stacker holds his right wrist out to Herc to unbutton.

Then, Stacker asks, "Do you want a weapon in the house?"

Herc looks up sharply.

...

"Did the Kaiju start using suicide bombers?"

Stacker sighs: the techglass wall behind him is starting to lighten already, and Stacker's tiredness shows in every line of his body. Herc holds Stacker's wrist in the fingers of his left hand, and Herc's fingers are on the side, undoing the second button.

"Unofficially," Stacker says, finally.

Herc breathes out. Herc thinks about being on his knees when the tech came toward him, swab out to test the inside of Herc's cheek for the biochemical profile that characterized the compounds used by the Kaiju to make living bombs: combined with appropriate mental cues, it could be done without leaving memories or, until the moment of activation, conscious knowledge of conversion.

...

Stacker tells Herc that he doesn't have to stay on his knees to get swabbed. Stacker tells the head of his security detail, in clear terms, that he won't have the children woken up to be swabbed. If his contractor says that they didn't leave the house, they didn't leave the house.

And then:

"Do you want a weapon in the house?"

Herc is still on his knees. They are in Stacker's bedroom with the door locked, and Herc is undressing Stacker. Normally, the next step, after taking the shoes off Stacker's feet in the way he wants, after undoing the buttons at Stacker's wrists in the order he wants -- Herc should, unless told otherwise, proceed with the buttons on Stacker's shirt.

Then, after that, he undoes the belt on Stacker's trousers and draws it out of the loops. Sometimes, Stacker has him put it on the bed stand. Sometimes, Stacker takes the belt out of Herc's hands.

This time, instead --

...

Herc breathes out. "What kind of weapon?"

"What would you want?"

Stacker's face is serious -- tired, but serious.

"They walked you up, two in front, one in back," Herc says, finally. "How many back on the transport?"

"Another six."

"Plus aerial support."

Too tired to talk, Stacker nods.

Herc started by carrying a plasma rifle in the Forces, worked his way up to running a twenty-five person unit keeping the peace by <i>holding riot lines</i> and doing house-to-house searches in the Slums. Dangerous work. Close work. Six months before Angela died, Herc asked for, and received, a transfer to training duties: he wanted to spend more time with his family. He wanted to start transitioning to post-deployment life. He never specialized in personal protection, but with eighteen years of Forces experience, he can read large letters written on the wall in Jaeger red and Kaiju blue.

If Jaeger security is worried enoguh to start escorting executives home with full squads, if suicide bombers were on the table, then what could he do with a single plasma rifle, alone, with two children to protect against fully combat-suited personnel?

"Have them put in a verbal trigger for the silent alarm, keyed to our voices," Herc says, finally.

Stacker nods and lies down: even with the lights on, still wearing his dress shirt and belt and work trousers, he is asleep before Herc comes back from taking Stacker's dirty clothes to the laundry bin in the bathroom.

...

Herc thinks about what is generally known on Kaiju-style suicide bombers: the sequence of injections altering body chemistry, a sequence of implanted cues, one nanochip drifting free in the bloodstream, tiny and remote and virtually undetectable until remote activation. The blast radius.

After two years, even though Herc hasn't been set with loyalty cues --

...

There is too much adrenaline in his body to sleep.

The door is closed, and the lights are off, so Herc strips out of his clothes and takes a shower: he is exhausted, but his heart is still beating abnormally fast. His stomach hurts the way it used to after a full day of clearances, and even lying in bed, his arms and legs shake as if he'd spent hours running up and down walk-ups in the Slums. He isn't sleeping, so without turning on the lights, Herc makes his way to the shower. There is a light from his alarm clock and the screensaver on the docked tablet, but Herc doesn't need it. His quarters are small; he keeps them as neat and uncluttered as he learned to keep his trainee bunk in the Forces.

After two years, Herc knows that if he rolls out of bed, then stands and keeps his right knee against the side of his bed, it's three steps until his left foot finds the floor of the bathroom.

In the dark, therefore, he turns on the water. The water is lukewarm: the house has a large boiler unit, and Herc's bathroom is hooked into the same system as everyone else's room, but Herc leaves it on the default setting. He lets the water, not quite warm, not quite cold, run down his chest and legs.

He breathes out, braces his forearms against the walls. Eventually, when he is calm enough, he shifts his collar and washes underneath it.

...

In the morning, Herc knocks on Mako's door -- she is up already, anxious about the test, but Chuck is still in bed and has to have the covers pulled off him, the soles of his feet tickled. At breakfast, Mako eats her toast and tea and hard-boiled egg while standing at the kitchen counter while Chuck eats a packaged bar at the dining table, muttering over last week's problem set.

After they've gone to their respective rooms to start the test, Herc clears the dishes and pours cold tea down the drain. Mako has a lucky pink hair clip she keeps in her pocket on important test days; Chuck left a scattering of crumbs on the dining table, along with a ring from his juice. Herc wipes both the liquid and the crumbs, picks up a dirty sock from the floor. Classes are by vidlink, so Chuck and Mako wear the Academy summer casual dress around the house: grey t-shirt with the Academy badge, tags on a chain, blue trousers that come to the ankle. Mako went barefoot indoors; Chuck wore socks.

Herc picks up the hooded sweatshirt left over the back. Chuck and Mako are almost the height that summer. Chuck is starting to get broader in the shoulders, but the same laundry service does all their clothes.

For the summer, to figure out who the shirt belongs to, Herc has to turn it over and look at the name badge sewn above the school crest.

...

If it came down to saving Chuck, Herc thinks, could he pull the trigger on Mako?

If he and Chuck were on the inside of the panic room, and the Kaiju were coming, could he close the door on Mako and listen to her die on the other side?

...

"You don't leave the house."

Chuck looks like he wants to have an argument. Herc doesn't want to hear it.

"Say it."

"I don't leave the house," Chuck says, arms crossed over his chest.

"You don't go up on the roof without telling me. You eat whatever you want from the kitchen, but you keep out of Mako's room and Stacker's bedroom and study. The house system is keyed so I'm the only one who can let anyone in. A package arrives, you come get me. I'm the one who goes out to check that Jaeger Security has cleared it."

Chuck makes a face, and his arms are still crossed over his chest. He is tired of this speech.

...

"Is it because of your contract?"

"What?"

"Is the reason we can't leave the house because of your contract? Because if it's just a security issue, Jaeger Security could follow us around. Two of them come to the door when Mako visits whats-her-name on Sundays. Why does she get to leave, and we don't?"

...

One afternoon, Herc comes into the great room, and Chuck is standing near the doorway between the kitchen and the great room. Max circles his feet, making the beeping noises that Chuck has added to make it easier to track him: occasionally, Max wanders into a corner and gets trapped because Chuck is still working out the finer points of the algorithms that will teach Max to back out of a corner.

Chuck squints at the hook set in the wall.

"What do you think it's for?" Chuck asks. "Think it'll hold this?"

Chuck holds a weight labeled at a half-kilogram on his palm.

When Herc looks at the weight without saying anything, Chuck explains that he has a physics lab on spring coefficients and gravity. He needs to hang some springs and test how far various weights will stretch them, and Herc has been collecting dirty dishes from around the house, so that he can run the dishwasher with a full load.

Instead of looking up at the hook set in the wall --

After a long, long moment, Herc tells Chuck to run the experiment somewhere else -- the gym, if he wants.

...

Chuck is thirteen, on the edge of fourteen. Sometimes, he seems older: sometimes, he seems younger.

One night, nothing goes right.

Stacker is home, back from a trip to Jakarta, but Chuck refuses to go to his room for bed. He is excited because Max can now back himself out of corners. Again and again, he keeps picking Max up and setting him down into corners to show his father: Chuck is excited. Chuck doesn't want to go to sleep. Chuck wants to go up on the roof; he wants to go into the kitchen, and after Herc finally gets Chuck into his bedroom with the door closed and acting as if he might go to bed, things get worse. Stacker is still on a call, and Herc can't keep still. Laying his face against the inside of Stacker's thigh makes him feel awkward. Uncomfortable.

Herc expects --

...

There is, Herc knows, a hook set in the ceiling of Stacker's shower.

...

"What's it feel like?"

Chuck makes a gesture, and Herc realizes that Chuck means the collar.

"Does it hurt?" Chuck asks.

"No."

"Is it heavy?"

"You get used to it."

"Has Pentecost ever used it on you?"

Herc looks at Chuck, and Chuck goes even redder: they're both sweating and flushed from the heat. Again, they're on the roof garden. Again, Stacker and Mako are eating a late lunch together in the great room, so Herc and Chuck are in the roof garden. Late in the afternoon, rather than full evening: the sun is moving down to the horizon, but the air is hot and thick and oppressively heavy with a full day's heat.

Chuck says defensively, "The engineering prof at the school says the agency ones have hard-wired safety mechanisms."

Herc doesn't know what to say.

...

Is Chuck close to his engineering professor? Is that why Chuck spends so much time doing extra work for his engineering class?

Does Chuck talk about him at --

...

Chuck talks about him at school with people he trusts, and over the course of the summer, slowly, without specifically intending to, without entirely wanting to, Herc finds out the engineering professor is a woman. Chuck shows him a picture of her standing next to Academy second years at the Shanghai Tower robotics competition. Chuck is proud of the picture because he is holding a trophy -- not the biggest one in the picture, but there are plenty of kids who don't have one.

Chuck looks happy, and he is standing next to Professor Lightcap.

She is tall and blonde; she wears glasses.

To Herc, she doesn't look like a thing like Angela, but Herc looks from the picture on the tablet to his son's face and thinks about how a thirteen year old boy with a dead mother and a collared, working father might have different standards.

...

Herc --

...

The night that nothing goes easily, Stacker doesn't beat him.

Kneeling between Stacker's legs with Stacker's hand keeping him in place, Herc feels the tightness of the hand on the back of his neck -- after the call, the hand comes off, and Herc tilts his head back. The world is framed by Stacker's legs and the underside of his desk; it isn't comfortable for a man as tall as Herc, but he knows that he is meant to hold still and that Stacker is irritated. A little angry. Part of it is the call; part of it is Herc fidgeting when he should know better after this much time.

Herc knows, too, in the bottom of his stomach, that if they were alone in the house, he would be crawling on his hands and knees to Stacker's bedroom.

He doesn't think Stacker would put him up on the hook in the wall between the great room and the kitchen: Stacker keeps that for willful disobedience. Stacker has been scrupulous about keeping Chuck from seeing anything.

Instead, Stacker lets him walk three steps ahead, and Herc is relieved.

...

They go to Stacker's bedroom, and Stacker locks the door: they go to the bathroom, and Stacker tells Herc to go to his knees facing a tiled corner. Herc is barefoot, but still wearing shirt and athletic shorts, and Stacker is still dressed, too. He rolls up his shirt sleeves, then takes one of the shower heads down from the wall and soaks Herc with water as cold as he can get from the faucet. Shoulder to shoulder, down his back, up and down his legs. He touches the back of Herc's neck, and Herc makes a small, terrible noise when his head is yanked back so that his front can be wet with cold, cold water.

Then, he turns off the water and lets Herc kneel on the cold tiles, under the air conditioning, in his wet clothes, until he is trembling.

...

Stacker goes, and Herc thinks, for a moment, that Stacker is going to come back with cuffs and a cane.

Instead, it's a bucket of ice mixed with water from the kitchen.

Afterwards, he holds still, as much as he can through the shivering, while Stacker undresses him, dries him, touches him everywhere.

...

Herc goes into summer expecting things to be -- difficult. Complicated.

They are.

...

On the other hand, he expects to fight more with Chuck; he expects Chuck to intentionally make things hard. Herc remembers that Chuck was difficult even before Angela died, and he remembers that in the days and weeks and months after Angela died, every step meant a fight. Getting dressed for school? Doing homework? Eating the food that Herc put in front of him? Herc remembers how angry Chuck became when Herc told him that yes, the admission letter had come through because his mother had put him down for a place years before, and yes, Chuck was going.

Herc remembers the contempt on Chuck's face over the idea of having to spend time with Mako Mori.

Surprisingly, as far as Herc can tell, Chuck and Mako stay clear of each other. They are intensely, vividly competitive with each other, and Herc keeps expecting it to spill into a fight: Mako wouldn't start it, he thinks, but his son would.

But Chuck doesn't.

Mako keeps mostly to her room; Tamsin sends for Mako on Sundays when Stacker is traveling, and the Academy has a demanding schedule even in summer. Herc can see the reserve that settles over Mako, the tension she doesn't want to discuss with him and how she is careful not to sit too close to him on the couch in the great room, respectfully distant.

Chuck and Mako aren't friends, but they also don't hit each other: the Academy has given each of them both lessons about living with people they neither like nor trust.

...

That summer, there is a laundry service.

...

That summer, there is a meal service. Herc collects the dirty laundry and sets it out; a drone brings it back clean and folded, and Herc gives Mako her pile, Chuck his pile, drops his off in on his bed, and puts Stacker's away for him.

Once a week, Herc circulates with a list of options from the meal service, knocking on Mako's door to ask if there is anything special that she wants, sticking his head into Chuck's to tell him what will be on order. Stacker's office coordinates his meals directly with the service, and they come as part of the drop-off: Herc picks up the habit of ordering extras, just in case Stacker is home more than expected, just in case Chuck or Mako get hungry. Both of them eat more than Herc expects. Chuck wears his clothes from the Academy without asking where his old things have gone: Herc doesn't think, in fact, that most of them would fit Chuck anymore.

...

There are widespread foot shortages in the Slums, and Herc closes away a report showing the crater left from a Kaiju suicide bomber walking into a social event attended by Jaegers, but one Sunday afternoon, when Chuck doesn't have classes or tutorial or extra homework or the work he is doing because there is slow-burning competition between Chuck and Mako that neither of them wants to admit out loud, especially, for some reason, to Herc -- one afternoon, Herc trims Chuck's hair. They start in Chuck's bathroom because the one in Herc's quarters is just large enough for Herc to turn around in. It is only meant for one. Consequently, Herc and Chuck start in Chuck's bathroom.

To finish, they move to the bedroom because the light from the window is brighter than the overhead one in the bathroom. Chuck sits in the chair from his desk, and Herc has electric clippers in his hand and tells Chuck four times to stay still and turned around. In the end, Herc holds the side of his son's neck to keep him steady for the clippers.

The last time he cut Chuck's hair was the week before Chuck went to the Academy. The last time he had so many meals with his son, the last time he got to watch Chuck fall asleep --

...

Herc remembers cutting Scott's hair.

...

"It feels weird," Chuck says, making a face and running his hand over the back of his neck.

"You wanted a haircut," Herc says, grinning a little, especially at how Chuck's face screws up even more when he feels how little there is over his ears.

"Who cuts yours?"

"There's a place by the station. I get it cut before I visit you at school," Herc says.

It's late July. Chuck shows his dad the places he went up in the class rankings after midterms.

...

Laundry service, meal service, minor household needs brought up by delivery: money makes life easier, and one night when Stacker is away, Herc and Chuck sit at the dining table. Herc has been looking for an update on the food riots in effect around Kowloon Tower that are leaving trails of smoke on the horizon, and he looks over at Chuck, working away at a problem set.

Money makes things easier, not just by providing food, not just by providing security, but --

...

Money pays for the Academy, and after two years at the Academy, Chuck missed his father. Chuck pushes boundaries, but is willing to behave on the important rules, some of which his father tells him out loud, repeatedly: don't sneak outside.

Chuck absorbs others lessons wordlessly: _Don't pick a fight with Mako Mori because her father owns me._

...

Herc has been looking for an update on the food riots in effect around Kowloon Tower, but after watching Chuck for a little more, Herc gets up, goes to the kitchen, and without saying anything to Chuck, brings them both back ice cream that he didn't mention ordering to Chuck. Big bowls, and he watches Chuck's face light up: old enough to sit down to homework without being told. Young enough to appreciate surprise ice cream.

...

"Miss Mori?" Herc asks, knocking. "I got ice cream. You want any?"

...

There is a trade war going on, and Stacker is away half the summer. The Academy runs classes six days a week: Chuck has holed up early to iron out some problems with his part of code for a project, and Herc comes out into the great room.

Mako sits on the couch, mouth open, staring at the vid screen.

"Miss Mori," Herc says softly.

The face she turns is more strained than a thirteen year old's should be: sitting down carefully, Herc turns the vidscreen to another program. Stacker isn't coming home that night, and there is a report, on the news, of the Kaiju pulling a man off an airtrain and shooting him on the platform. Mako sits with her shoulders tight, face miserable.

Carefully, Herc sits down next to her. Opens his arms.

...

"What do you do?"

Herc looks over. They're in the kitchen alone; it's Sunday afternoon. Mako is traveling, under heavy guard, to see Tamsin. Chuck's lunch is reheating. Herc's is on the counter, waiting for Chuck's to be done first.

"What do you mean?"

Chuck doesn't back down, and he doesn't look away. They're three days out from his hair cut.

"You don't go to work with him. You're not his bodyguard. You're a security contractor, right?"

Herc just looks at his son, steady and full.

"So what do you do?"

"Look after the house. Run errands." Herc pauses. "Keep an eye on Mako."

Chuck's thirteenth birthday is in a month weeks, and after two years at the Academy, he has absorbed certain lessons from seeing the way that children born to people who are highly placed in the great trade clans act: Herc goes on looking at his son, and he expects Chuck to get embarrassed and look away.

...

Chuck doesn't.


	24. Chapter 24

The house is large: a master suite with bathroom, separate wardrobe, and dressing area, two guest suites, a study, and a purpose-built gym. The great room has a seating area to comfortably hold twelve and a dining set-up to match. To the side is a full-size kitchen with utility flex- space tucked away for laundry and caterers; there are contractor quarters and a panic room secure with its own power source, life support, and shielding. In the great room are floating stairs that lead to the roof. Tucked into the side is a small but beautiful glass-sided elevator that Herc suspects, correctly, was purpose-installed for Tamsin. 

Art hangs on certain walls; for effect, certain walls are stripped to concrete. Windows are in every room meant for the residents, and they run from wall to wall, if not also ceiling to floor. Skylights are cut into the ceiling of the great room. 

Above is a roof garden, then security force shields, then Jaeger security on patrol. 

...

One night, Chuck asks his father whether he still thinks about Angela Hansen, and Herc replies that he does: one afternoon, Chuck comes out of his bedroom after the laundry delivery, and Herc is in his quarters. Chuck has one of the guest bedrooms, where the door swings into the hall. Herc's quarters are small and narrow and windowless; the door slides into the wall to save space.

Chuck stands in the doorway and looks at the walls and the furniture, then his father. 

"Anybody in the one next door?"

"No." 

"Why?"

"Only one contractor." 

"What's the other place look like?"

"Same as this one." 

"So Stacker could've put me in there." 

Herc looks up, visibly irritated: by Chuck suggesting that he might belong in contractor quarters, or Chuck calling Stacker Pentecost by his first name, or both? 

"You're not a contractor," Herc says, a little shortly, and Chuck pulls a face and crosses his arms over his chest. The room is narrow, windowless, a quarter of the size of his, even. Herc's bed is built into the wall on one side; there is a narrow desk on the other side, along with a docking station for a tablet. The walls are plain. There are no sharp edges. Herc has been in the space for two years, and he keeps the surfaces are scrupulously neat and clean. Almost bare: there are no pictures or personal items on display except for in the narrow recessed shelf built into the wall above the bed, where Herc keeps an electric alarm clock with the time in glowing letters. 

Chuck keeps on making a face. He keeps his arms crossed over his chest, but doesn't move from the doorway. 

Eventually, Herc sighs. 

"Give me a hand with the sheets," he says, putting a hand on the bed and straightening.

Chuck does. 

...

"Remember this?" Herc says. He sits down next to Chuck. 

...

The new sheets are on the bed, corners are pulled tight and folded under and angled in the way Herc learned in basic training. Once, while home on leave, Herc taught Chuck how to make them: Herc was bored out of his mind, and Chuck was fascinated. They did every bed in the house, all two of them. In Herc's memory, Chuck was eight, maybe nine. Not strong enough to lift the corner of his mattress by himself, let alone the double that Herc and Angela shared. 

Between deployment for the Forces and working on a contract, how many things has Herc Hansen had a chance to teach his son?

...

They put the sheets on the bed, and Chuck -- doesn't go away immediately. 

Herc looks at him. Chuck pretends to be squinting at the floor under the chair, and after a moment of silence, Herc gets back to his knees one more time. None of the drawers in his quarters lock, but this drawer is the farthest away from the door and a little awkward to get to, long, wide, close to the floor. Herc keeps personal effects there. 

"Remember this?" Herc says, holding something out at Chuck. 

Chuck looks at Herc, then blinks at the object in his father's hand. 

Eventually, he takes it from Herc. He sits on the bed. Carefully, gingerly, Herc sits down next to him. 

Together, they look at an old-fashioned, hard copy photo album. 

...

Stacker, Herc has noticed, doesn't keep pictures of Mako. 

He is proud of her. He loves her. He cares enough about her to compromise for her sake, and Stacker and Mako talk regularly, as often as the Academy allows. Nevertheless, in terms of pictures and personal items, Stacker limits it to the lock screen on his personal tablet. Herc has been with Stacker for two years, and as far as Herc can tell, it's been the same picture for two years -- Mako and Tamsin together on the roof garden, probably the afternoon before Tamsin and Stacker dropped her off at Academy for the first time. 

Mako is standing and wearing her uniform. Tamsin is sitting on a bench, cane laid over her knee. Tamsin is holding Mako's hand, and Mako is smiling. They are both looking at the person taking the picture, who is presumably Stacker. 

Tamsin's expression is as soft as Herc has ever seen it. 

...

Tamsin loves Mako as if she were Tamsin's own. She loves Mako as much as Stacker does. 

Still, from the times Herc has been there, he has not seen anything in her home to show it: Tamsin is not a woman who believes in showing her hand. 

Tamsin Sevier comes from class of people who have succeeded and stayed successful, in part, because they do not believe in showing _vulnerability_. 

...

In contrast, Herc remembers the old apartment: small, cramped, tucked into an interior corridor, no pretending at there being outward-facing windows, but it was still in a Tower, and there were certificates and awards for Chuck on most surfaces in the kitchen, framed pictures crowding the hallways. Angela took pictures on her phone and sent them to him, to her parents, to the whole world, including the old tablet that she kept on the coffee table as a picture frame. 

Did Angela love you? Did she care about you? Then you showed up in the photographs. Her mother's house was that way, too. Dozens of pictures of Angela as a kid, dozens of Chuck from infancy onwards. Herc remembers a few group pictures where he showed up, either standing with Angela or while holding Chuck. 

Chuck sits on Herc's bed in his contractor quarters, going through an album that starts with Herc and Angela getting married and ends in blank, unused pages. 

...

Herc says, softly, "You like that one?" 

Chuck hesitates. 

"Here," Herc says and gently, carefully takes the picture out of the tabs holding it to the page. It shows Chuck and Angela the summer before she died. She is wearing a large hat and sunglasses and a swim suit; Chuck is wearing swim trunks and is holding a bottle of water. Herc isn't surprised that Chuck likes that one: Christmas leave the year before Angela died. It's one of the last photos in the album, and Herc has a fuzzy memory of the day: hot sun, amusement park, sunblock for everyone. Noise, paying too much at the concession stand. How much a kid cannonballing off a diving platform sounded, somehow, a little like a door being kicked off its hinges. 

Herc gives the photo to Chuck. "Take it," he says. 

Chuck looks up, blinks. Does. 

...

Then, Chuck surprises Herc. 

"Can I have that one, too?"

Chuck points to another picture on the page. Same trip, same day, but taken by Angela: Chuck and Herc are standing together. Chuck is in swim trunks, and so is Herc. 

...

Then, Chuck surprises Herc for the second time that afternoon: he says, quietly, that he read on the news that a coalition of the unaligned trading clans have offered to broker ceasefire talks. The Kaiju have already committed to sitting down. Does Herc know what the Jaegers will say? Will Chuck be going back to the Academy in the fall? 

...

One night, while standing on a roof garden and looking out at a broad sweep of the city, Chuck asks whether his father still thinks about Angela Hansen. Herc replies that he does: after all, it's the truth. He is glad for a question that he can answer fully and honestly. 

He also senses the question behind Chuck's question: Stacker's house is not what Chuck imagined when he asked to come home. Mako is a reminder of everything that Chuck isn't. Chuck is uncomfortable with delivered meals and laundry service and personal bodyguards and private roof gardens and spectacular views over polished marble floors. Chuck doesn't know what to make of having a bigger room than his father, that he calls Mako _Mako_ , but his father calls her, respectfully, _Miss Mori_ and seems content, comfortable doing it. 

For Chuck, even after all these years, home means a cramped space with at least one of his parents in charge. 

Even if Chuck doesn't have the words, even if Herc would never put it into so many words, Herc knows Chuck is asking: does the past still have a place in Herc's life? 

...

Chuck is thirteen, almost fourteen. Sometimes, he acts younger. Other times, he seems much older. 

Either way, Chuck is a long way from being stupid. _Bright kid,_ people always say, and Chuck has noticed there are pieces that don't fit together. If his father is a security contractor, why doesn't he travel with Stacker to the office or on trips? If his father is in charge of making sure _Miss Mori_ stays safe, why does Herc stay home when Mako goes to Tamsin Sevier on Sundays? 

Why does his father tense every time Stacker Pentecost comes through the door? 

Chuck is a smart kid. Chuck knows he isn't being told the full truth. 

...

Consequently, one night, while the ceasefire talks are still being set up, Stacker is comes home late. Peace, in some ways, means more work than war. He is tired and has been coming home late every day for a week: coming home before ten means an effort, but the preliminary terms of discussion call for senior personnel to return their children to the Academy for the start of the year. He has two weeks left with Mako. 

That night, Herc is under the belief that Chuck has gone to bed early, and it's technically true. Chuck is in bed. The lights are off. 

Chuck is thirteen, almost fourteen, and he spent a summer working on customizing a robot. After two months, who notices Max sitting quietly by the side table in the seating area, apparently depowered for the night? 

...

When Chuck switches the feed on, it's stable and smooth and in color. The corners are slightly dark because the lens is small and tucked almost flush against Max's casing, but the centre is clear. Mako and Stacker are sitting at the dining table. Stacker is eating a late dinner and listening to Mako talk. 

Herc, Chuck realizes, is on his knees next to Stacker's chair. Chuck expects that something dropped from the table: he has seen his father bringing Mako food in her room on a tray. He can imagine Herc warming food in the kitchen and bringing it to Stacker. Laying out a paper napkin. Pouring a glass of water or whatever else Stacker wants. 

Chuck waits for his father to get up from the floor. 

Herc doesn't. 

...

Stacker and Mako talk. Eventually, Mako asks to be dismissed: on her way out of the great room, she looks down at Max, and her eyes narrow. Chuck holds his breath, but she doesn't say anything. 

On the other hand, she makes a point of slamming the door on her bedroom. 

...

After Mako slams the door, Stacker finishes the food in his mouth, then turns and looks at Herc: 

"Take off your shirt," Stacker says. 

Chuck hears his father say _yes, sir_. Then, he watches his father pull it off over his head and fold it in his lap and lay it on the floor. 

Stacker picks up a piece of carrot from his plate. 

"Present," Stacker says. 

Again, quietly, _yes, sir_. 

Hearing the same words twice out of his father, Chuck thinks his father doesn't sound quite like himself. Mako sounded the way she normally did. Chuck hasn't heard Stacker speak much-- his father, Chuck knows, tries to keep Stacker and Chuck separated. Chuck has noticed that much over the course of the summer. Still, Stacker sounds basically the way he had sounded the handful of times Chuck has been in the room to hear him. 

_Yes, sir._

Chuck thinks it might not entirely be the quality of the microphone he has installed in Max. 

...

Present means, apparently, for Herc to put his hands behind his back and for him to grip, with each hand, the opposing forearm. He does it high up, close to the elbow, so that his chest is pushed out. 

A moment after that: 

"Arms up," Stacker says. 

"Yes, sir." Through the camera, Chuck watches his father unfold his hands from behind his back and bring them up so that they are clasped behind his neck. 

There is metal on his father's chest. Chuck knows it wasn't there when -- at least it wasn't in the photograph of him and his father at the beach. 

"Good," Stacker says. He brings his hand down from the table, and through a lens, Chuck watches his father eat from Stacker's hand. 

...

Chuck watches his father eat from Stacker's hand. Chicken. Vegetables. Whatever Stacker chooses to give him. Most of what Stacker has left on the plate, including most of a slice of bread that Stacker buttered and ate half of. To feed it to Herc, he tears into easy-to-eat pieces. 

"Do you want any more?"

"No, sir." 

Stacker holds his fingers out to Herc, and Chuck watches his father lean forward and suck Stacker's fingers clean, one at a time: for a moment, Chuck thinks Stacker is going to wipe his hand dry on Herc's face. 

Instead, Stacker wipes his hand on a napkin, then wipes Herc's mouth: Herc's hands stay up and behind his neck. 

"Thirsty?" Stacker asks. 

"Please, sir." 

Using a fork, Stacker fishes the ice cubes out of his glass of water, so that Herc won't have to deal with them. 

... 

"More?"

"Please, sir."

Another mouthful of water. Two more, with Stacker wiping Herc's mouth between each mouthful, and Herc keeping his fingers laced over the back of his neck. 

"Are your arms tired?" 

"Please, sir." 

Chuck notices that instead of saying _yes_ , his father has started saying _please_ , and that Stacker lets him do it. 

Chuck notices that his father's collar and piercings match. 

...

How much does Chuck know about sex? He is a teenager and goes to boarding school. Even if Chuck has not, in two years, made a single friend or kissed anyone, he knows. Kids talk. Plus, two of his roommates in his second year used to climb into each other's bunks once the lights went out, and Chuck would shove his earphones in and turn to face the wall. The Academy forbade pornography on the school network access, but when had that stopped anyone minimally resourceful? 

Chuck knows what a blowjob looks like. Chuck knows what a blowjob sounds like. He watches the first few minutes of his father blowing Stacker Pentecost -- he sees the cheeks hollowing. The mike doesn't catch the small noises, but Chuck sees Stacker Pentecost ease forward and put his hand on the back of Herc's head. 

He sees his father's hands gripping behind Stacker Pentecost's knees, and -- 

...

Chuck shuts off the feed, and consequently, he doesn't see how Stacker finishes in his father's mouth -- two strokes, then three with one hand gripping the back of Herc's collar and the other under Herc's jaw, moving Herc's mouth over his dick with the speed that he wants. 

Afterwards, Herc holds Stacker's come like he's been trained: lips wet, eyes open, not swallowing until he has been given permission. 

Chuck doesn't see that much. 

...

Instead, Chuck stares at the wall. He hears Stacker and his father coming through the hall afterwards: they are talking about something, but the words are indistinct. His father doesn't sound upset. His father certainly doesn't sound like he objected or didn't want to. 

Chuck curls tighter around the pillow and lets the tablet go to screensaver. 

....

Chuck doesn't say anything the next morning. 

Herc comes and tries to pull the covers back because the Academy runs Saturday morning classes, and Chuck pulls back down and turns his face away until Herc, assuming it's because Chuck stayed awake late to work on Max, throws up his hands and says if Chuck is late, he has nobody to blame but himself. Chuck has classes all morning, then eats lunch in his room after Herc knocks on his door and asks if he is still finishing class work: that afternoon, Chuck hears his dad exchange a few words with Mako in the hallway. 

A little later, he hears Mako say a few words to her father. 

...

Chuck doesn't say anything that night. 

...

Chuck doesn't -- 

...

Finally, the next day: 

"You're a liar," Chuck says. 

Herc stops moving.

"You _told_ me you were a security contractor. You _told_ me you still think about Mum. You _said_ \-- " 

There are spots of color high on Chuck's face. The color drains rapidly out of Herc's, and they are in the roof garden. Sunset is an hour or two off, and Mako and Stacker are having dinner together downstairs. Stacker is going back to work after he eats, but wanted to see Mako again after Tamsin and he both had to work through Sunday. 

"Listen to me," Herc says, sounding desperate. 

He reaches for Chuck. Chuck twists away. 

...

For Chuck, it has nothing to do with Stacker Pentecost being a man. 

Chuck is thirteen, on the edge of fourteen. He looks like, talks like Herc -- blond-brown hair instead of red, just starting to fill out in the shoulders. The same cheekbones, but Angela Hansen’s eyes.

Twenty-five months later --


	25. Chapter 25

Twenty-five months is more than two years. 

...

Twenty-five months represents four full terms, the start of a fifth, plus two summer terms, together with all holidays and breaks. It makes up two Christmases; it just manages to span three birthdays. 

After twenty-five months and three weeks, Chuck is fifteen, almost sixteen and changing in the locker room after sparring practice. 

...

Chuck is taller than he used to be. There is more muscle on him, too. Regular feeding with good-quality food and guided time in the Academy weight room has paid off. Herc is over two meters, good looking. Angela Hansen was beautiful, and even in the crowded room, thick with steam from showers and talking, Chuck stands out. The Academy runs unisex changing rooms; Chuck is stowing his gear into his assigned gym locker when he hears classmates talking about a party at the apartment of a less-popular classmate over the summer. 

One of them makes a noise to describe just what she thinks of someone trying to buy approval by throwing a party while her parents are away. 

Everyone else in the circle sniggers. 

"What, so you fucked on her parents' bed?" one of them asks. 

No, somebody else replies, grinning, _better_. Her parents had a contractor, one of _those kinda_ contractors, and they'd left him behind. 

" -- wouldn't come out of his quarters until Isra said we couldn't get the vidscreen to work." the same one says. "You should've seen him. Wouldn't stop screaming until we figured out the trigger, but Isra took vid on -- " 

Even for the crowded, noisy locker room, they're loud. 

After a moment, Chuck realizes that he is staring at the towel in his hands, but finds that his thoughts don't have words. His fingers feel cold; his face feels hot. He knows that he is angry, but he also feels some kind of physical sensation creeping up his body, steady but slow, and making the skin on the back of his hands prickle. His hands have, without him thinking anything in particular, curled into fists. 

He turns when he hears a scream. 

...

Chuck turns, and Isra is on the floor, folded in two and clutching her stomach. Mako has moved onto the one who described raping a contractor as _better_ \-- Chuck thinks his name might be Caleb, and Chuck remembers that he is from Singapore Tower, but Mako has her knee on the side of his head with his right arm twisted up hard enough to make him scream. She pulls. He screams. His face is red with pain and fear; Mako's face is white with rage. 

There is a sound from the other end of the room, and Chuck sees that three of Isra and Caleb's friends are coming for Mako. 

Without thinking, Chuck decks the first one and throws his shoulder into the second. 

....

"Behind you," Mako says, and Chuck turns, looks, ducks. 

On the other hand, Chuck and Mako are within five places of each other in at least three of their classes. Those are the first words Mako has said directly to him in -- a long time. Chuck thinks it might even be as far back when two Jaeger security agents flew them back to the Academy.

When the headmaster comes out into the hallway, he finds that Chuck and Mako have to be hauled off each other. 

Chuck bellows; Mako twists, trying to get away from the administrator holding her. 

...

For more than two years of his life, Chuck refuses to see or speak to or take a call from his father. He stays at school through holidays; he doesn't respond to messages in his school inbox. Chuck will spend money out of his commissary account for books and school clothes and toiletries and class materials, the bare necessities of staying at the Academy, but nothing else. 

Every time Herc tries to send Chuck a birthday or Christmas present or paper letter, Chuck has it returned unopened _by request of recipient_. Chuck expects to celebrate his sixteenth birthday with Dr. Lightcap in the engineering lab with the lights off and a candle stuck into a slice of cake from the cafeteria. He intends to surprise Dr. Lightcap by showing her how Max can now play _Happy Birthday_ on a sound chip that Chuck wrote and put together from scratch in the chip synthesis lab. Chuck expects -- even looks forward to -- returning this year's birthday present unopened. Thinking about it makes him sneer and straighten his shoulders, and what Mako says to Chuck in the hallway outside the headmaster's office, afternoon sun pouring through the windows that run along one side of the hallway: he is breathing shallow because at the end, he was being held down by two of Isra's friends while someone punched him in the stomach. Mako is standing across from him with both of her shoulderblades pressed to the wall. She is going to have a bruise over half her face. 

Neither of them has said anything for a while. 

Then: 

_Your father does so much for you,_ Mako says, quietly. _He loves you so much. You won't even talk to him. You won't even take a birthday present from him._

Chuck snaps, _So your dad is better than Isra and Caleb and their friends?_

...

Faculty and administrators have drag Mako and Chuck apart, and Chuck is, at sixteen, almost at his full adult height. The muscle is starting to come, too, and he has five years of close combat training from the very, very good instructors at the Academy. When they are pulled apart, Chuck calls Mako a filthy name, and suggests that she is Pentecost's bitch on a leash. 

Does she enjoy it when Pentecost fucks her? Does he use the lea -- 

Chuck is strong, but Mako is fast. She twists out of the hands holding her, puts a foot down, turns, and readies to put her elbow into Chuck's throat, but gets hauled back. Consequently, she settles for spitting in Chuck's face. The spit hits just as the the headmaster comes out. He looks at the two of them, seeing that Mako's face has gone white again with anger, and Chuck's nosebleed has started up all over again to go along with the spit running down his left cheek. 

In a voice tight with anger, looking from Mako's face to Chuck's, the headmaster informs them both that he is calling both their fathers. Do they have any pressing medical needs? No? Then until their respective fathers arrive, Chuck and Mako are on punishment guard duty outside her door. 

...

What does Chuck think on seeing his father again for the first time in more than two years? 

Chuck expects to be angry, and he expects to call up the familiar, comfortable way anger that makes his face twist up. Instead, at fifteen, almost sixteen, stomach aching and chest strangely, suddenly tight, his emotions surprise him: Chuck sees his father come in, and his first thought is that Herc looks smaller than he remembered. 

Chuck's second thought -- 

...

Chuck's second thought, which comes to him slowly, is that his father looks older.

His mother has a place laid carefully away in the main drawer of his locked study carrel in the library: main drawer, dead center, right up front and first thing and carefully pressed flat in the Academy-blue folder where Chuck keeps all of his certificates and awards of merit from not only the robotics competitions, but also general academics. There are a few other pictures of Mum and his grandparents and the old house that he saved when they had to clear out of the house. There is a picture of Dr. Lightcap in the folder, but there is no place for his father. 

On the other hand, Chuck knows exactly where the photo of his father is is: bottom left-hand drawer, underneath a pile of old tests and an old copy of _Practical Engineering Solutions_. Scratched and possibly with a rip or two in it. Chuck tries not to look at it, because every time he does, he knows he should tear it into scraps, then throw them away. Or burn it and toss the ashes. He gets angry. His face twists up. He knows he ought to. 

But he hasn't. 

Standing by the headmaster's office, Chuck's face is stiff from the nosebleed. His lip throbs. With the demerits from both this fight and the one in the locker room, he can almost hear himself dropping through the class rankings; the fact that Mori will be going down too doesn't help. In the moment, though, Chuck feels emotion building in him, but in a different place and way than before. 

His father comes in three steps behind Stacker Pentecost, walking to his right, looking as angry as he ever did when Chuck was eleven and they were living in the Slums, just the two of them, in one of those shitty little places, and Chuck had added to his father's troubles by getting in a fight at school again -- but he also looks different.

...

"Mako," Stacker says. 

" _Sensei_ ," she says back. One of her eyes is swollen. It's starting to turn black and will be worse in the morning. Her lip is split open in two places, and Stacker can see that the skin is gone from the knuckles of her right hand. She is standing stiffly, and there is a smear of blood -- possibly hers, possibly someone else's -- across the front of her Academy tunic. 

Stacker and Mako look at each other. Stacker is surprised by the expression on Mako's face. 

He doesn't expect defiance. He doesn't expect her to decline, steadfastly, but politely, to tell him what she and Chuck were fighting about. He looks at the headmaster, who looks both angry and worried: the headmaster has explained, while they wait for Chuck and Herc to come back, that there was an immediately preceding fight in the locker room with other class mates. Mako looks like she got a proper beating, and Stacker puts away, for just a moment, his anger with the headmaster and the administration.

Instead, Stacker looks back at Mako. 

The stubborn defiance on her face when she looks back at him -- 

...

What happens during those twenty-five months?


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is pretty dark already, but from here on out, we are heading for really UH THAT'S FUCKED UP UH THAT'S KINDA ABUSIVE WHY DOESN'T ANYONE RECOGNIZE HOW SCREWED UP THIS ALL IS. Remember, sports fans, this is not how consent, healthy relationships, or safe kink works in the actual, real world.

One thing that happens during those twenty-five months: Chuck is angry, so he refuses all contact with his father.  
...

Another thing that happens during those twenty-five months: Herc asks Stacker to fuck him.

...

Angela is dead, and so are her parents. Herc's father disappeared before he was a teenager; Herc's mother worked herself into an early grave. Scott took bribes to look the other way, and when Herc found out, it ended with a fistfight before a beating, before ad ishonorable discharge and having the tracker chip ripped out of his arm. How many friends does a dishonorable discharge have? Tendo is a good man, and he kept in contact with Herc, passed on him the name of a recruiter, tried to use his contacts, checked on Herc and Chuck a couple times, but Chuck went to Academy, and Herc sold himself to keep Chuck there. 

For more than twenty-five months, Chuck won't talk to Herc. 

...

Through the networked scheduling system, Chuck refuses to see him. 

He won't take birthday or Christmas presents. For the commissary, to pay for things like socks and a new class tunic and toiletries and class texts, he accepts the bare minimum it takes to keep him enrolled, but nothing more. Herc has a suspicion, correct as it turns out, that the engineering professor that Chuck cares so much about intervenes: the first time he intentionally underperforms on a test in her class, Dr. Caitlin Lightcap asks him to stay after class and gets the story out of him, in bits, in pieces. She considers the look on his face, a mix of child and adult and anger and disgust and fear and defiance and guilt and pride, and she knows that if she tries to talk to him about what his father would want, if she tries to remind him that his father is doing this for him, it won't go well. How much faith does she have in Chuck's affection for her? Chuck is that angry. 

So Dr. Lightcap leaves it for another time: instead, she tells him, bluntly, that she doesn't care if he is angry at his father. He has worked too hard. 

She has invested too much in him. 

If Chuck wants to never end up on his knees for someone, he needs to finish the Academy. 

...

So. 

...

Who does Herc Hansen have left?

When she comes home on holidays, Mako Mori. 

The other forty-some weeks of the year, Stacker Pentecost. 

...

Stacker Pentecost believes, very deeply, that there he has done nothing wrong with or to Herc. Is there anything inherently shameful about submission? No. Has he ever asked Herc for something unreasonable or something that Herc cannot give? No. 

In fact, by every standard that Stacker understands, he provides Herc with excellent working conditions. 

He pays well, in full, on time, every time. He has never withheld food or water in order to coerce Herc or otherwise. Herc eats the same food that Stacker does, sleeps on sheets from the same store as Stacker. Unlike some clients, Stacker doesn't keep Herc confined to a room, let alone chained to a bed or a piece of furniture. Herc has the run of the house. Herc has unrestricted network access; the vidscreen will show him anything he wants. Herc has never, in two years, spent an afternoon outside the house on the shopping or recreational concourses: on the other hand, he has never asked. 

Stacker doesn't drug Herc. Stacker has he never used the electrical shock function of the collar: he takes only calculated, controlled health risks with Herc. Stacker has never played the game, popular with some, of throwing a party and having the party favor be fucking one of the holes on his contractor. 

...

In two years, as evidenced by read-outs from the collar, Stacker has never pushed Herc's stress levels to dangerous levels, let alone life-threatening ones. If Stacker has selfish reasons for not wanting Herc to have been delivered with conditioning cues, whether for loyalty or arousal or submission or anything else, he has other reasons, too. 

Herc signs his paperwork in a quiet, closed-away room in the agency with video monitoring and Stacker watching from behind a one-way window. Stacker signs his in a conference room at the agency, the agency representative across the table, the closing agent at the end of the table, and Stacker's solicitor at his right. Kaori takes documents from the closing agent, makes sure her changes have been reflected, and shows them to Stacker with a word or two before showing him where to sign. There is a long table in the room; they are only using a fraction of the seats, and between papers, Stacker looks out the window facing along view out along the window shows the water of Victoria Harbor under noon sun. Coffee and tea are on the sideboard. If signing goes on, they can send out for lunch. 

"Here is the checklist for delivery," Kaori says, taking the paper in hand, then frowning down at the sheet. "Give me a moment, Stacker." 

She stands with the paper in hand and walks over to the closing agent. She has a few quiet words with him while pointing to line items. She circles over to the agency representative, then comes back to Stacker. Kaori sits down and shows him the line items on the closing sheet. 

Part of the standard prep for sex contractors is a dermal resurfacing package. 

...

Many clients, Stacker is informed by the agency representative, eager to please, anxious to avoid wrecking the deal at the last minute -- many clients, particularly those with tastes like his, preferred to start with clean canvas. 

With his peripheral vision, Stacker can see Kaori narrow her eyes. 

Her objections, on the other hand, are that the agency, intentionally or otherwise, forgot the instructions they had been given and were planning to charge Stacker for the privilege. 

...

The agency representative starts ticking off the various services included in the standard package and contrasting them with the one in the upgraded package they've given Stacker. The additional cost is reasonable, after all. The package is very comprehensive. Dermal regen, tattoo removal, permanent depilation -- aesthetic surgery would be an additional cost, but a relatively small one since this was a whole body, ten year contract, and the agency had excellent surgeons on retainer, used to working to demanding standards. If Mr. Pentecost had his own surgeons lined up, though, that was certainly his prerogative. 

Sitting in the conference room, leaning back in his chair with his back to the view of Victoria Harbor, Stacker thinks of the tattoo on _Hercules's_ right arm, the unit mark on the left shoulder blade, gotten at seventeen and proudly re-inked from time to time to keep it fresh: a lifetime written on skin. Wide shoulders, slightly freckled. 

The profile said he went by _Herc._

...

"How much do you care?"

Stacker makes a face. They are standing in a second conference room next to the one where they have been signing papers, and Stacker and Kaori are standing by the window. This time, the view is back over the Peak. 

Kaori considers him, then asks, "If they have done the work already, Stacker, do you still want him?"

"Yes," Stacker says, immediately. 

Kaori considers him for even longer, then nods. She is short standing next to Stacker, but tall for a Japanese woman. She is also very good at her job. 

They go back into the main room. 

... 

Her last question to Stacker is reasonable. She knows him; he understands what she is asking. They have worked together for a long time and are friends in addition to their relationship to each other as solicitor and client. Part of Herc's appeal to Stacker is that he is the kind of man whose life is written on his body. Impolite gossip points out that Tamsin Sevier could take a boy out of the Slums, but even she couldn't -- 

...

When they go back into the room, Kaori calmly refuses the agency's line item addition, then graciously, relentlessly wrings out of the agency a concession that will save Stacker, over the course of the contract, the equivalent of half-year's worth of pay for Herc. Certain fees will be waived; certain costs will be paid out of the agency cut. 

Then, just to put give the matter an additional level of clarity, even though he is completely satisfied with what Kaori has gotten from the agency by way of compensation for their attempt to pull one one on him, Stacker speaks up after Kaori has gotten the final sheet re-done. Using small words for the benefit of the agency representative, Stacker says that even if he has the right to ask for them as part of the standard package on a whole risk contract, he doesn't want them. Even if the agency thinks Stacker wants changes, now that the papers have been signed, they keep their hands off Herc Hansen -- he wants what he _fucking_ paid for. 

The closing agent looks up from the portable terminal where she is working. 

The agency representative's face changes color.

...

Because Kaori Jessop notices the line-item charge on the closing sheet, because Stacker Pentecost tells the agency once that he wants what he is paying for the agency to keep their hands off him, Herc gets to keep the sun-and-stars mark from his old unit that was the first thing in life he ever felt he _earned_. 

Because Stacker is very clear, Herc gets to keep his tattoo with the word _Angela_ spelled out in flowing script.

Herc Hansen comes to Stacker Pentecost with a haircut and a shave and a collar and a bag of clothes he assumes he'll get to wear, a photo album and a few reminders of the life he used to have: some clients want the full conditioning package. Some clients want surgery. Some want contractors to arrive without even clothes or personal effects. 

Nothing but a collar and a head full of conditioning. 

...

"Mr. Pentecost," the agency representative says, turning to him after seeing that he isn't getting anywhere with Kaori. "You'll need to sign a waiver to indicate that you understand _Angela_ was the name of his dead spouse, and that you're willing to accept delivery with -- "

For a while, he tries to draw out the process, banking on how bad he thinks Stacker Pentecost wants to get his new contractor home and naked and underneath him. 

...

Stacker Pentecost remembers, though, just how much he liked, from the beginning, the whole of the man he met in the interviewing room: on his knees, thighs and ass slick with lube, just in case Stacker wanted to bend him over the interview table and take him for a test drive. Given some shoddy, terrible agency briefing about how to please someone whose initial work-up looked like Stacker's. Stacker could guess components of the talk that the agency supplied: 

_Keep your head down. Don't look him in the eye._

_Keep your hands behind your back and your legs spread._

All that, and Herc made a reasonable effort, even though the only part that came naturally managed was keeping his hands behind his back. 

Asked to talk about the half-covered tattoo on his arm, without thinking about it, Herc straightened his shoulders and brought his knees together. Didn't say a single bad word about the Forces that had given years of his life to, but turned him out -- the interviews were blind, but who else could it have been? After sitting down and hearing five words out of the man's mouth, after taking one look at those wide, beautiful shoulders smattered with freckles, flushing beautifully and marked up like a man who'd seen something of life -- 

_Why are you doing this?_

The man looked back at him, blue eyed and calm. His Slums accent was different than the one that Stacker grew up with and thicker, too, than anything Stacker has heard in years. 

_I have a son. Bright kid,_ Herc says. 

...

Stacker is impressed by toughness and loyalty and courage and honesty. Stacker was looking for emotional resilience. 

Emotional resilience carries Herc through the death of his wife

...

Emotional resilience carries Herc through finding out that his brother taking bribes to look the other way, then getting discharged from the Forces, two years shy of his twenty. 

...

Emotional resilience carries Herc through the ugly shock of having to move out of the Tower to make their savings stretch, leaving behind every personal possession except what they could carry away, and the ugly desperation of trying to raise a son in the Slums and simultaneously watching their savings dwindle while he tried to find work. When the acceptance letter from the Academy comes, almost miraculously tracing them through multiple moves, Herc stays up half the night, sitting at a cheap table and trying to decide what to do. 

Emotional resilience carries him through his first two years with Stacker. 

...

That and having a son. That and having a certain amount of -- 

...

Two years into his contract, while Chuck is in the house, Stacker punishes Herc for fidgeting when he knows better. Chuck is sleeping, or at least in his room with the door closed and the lights off. So is Mako. Herc and Stacker go from Stacker's study to his bedroom, then from the bedroom to the bathroom, where Stacker puts Herc on his knees in the shower, facing into the corner. One of the shower heads can be taken down and held in the hand. It stays connected to the water source by a length of flexible pipe, and Stacker takes it down from the wall, turns a few handles, and wets every inch of Herc with the water turned cold and high and strong. 

Then he goes to the kitchen and comes back with a bucket of water mixed with ice. 

...

The air conditioning is on throughout the house, and Herc went to his knees in a long-sleeved shirt and shorts. The tiles were cool from climate control, and after being wet from shoulder to shoulder, forehead to knees, Stacker running the cold water from the shower head down Herc's back, Herc is cold. Uncomfortable. 

"Open your mouth," Stacker says. 

Herc does, and Stacker puts two pieces of ice on his tongue. "Once they melt," Stacker tells him. "Ask for more." 

Herc makes a low noise in his throat, but closes his mouth, closes his eyes. 

Braces himself. 

...

"Present," Stacker says, quietly. 

Herc understands, correctly, that because of his misbehavior, this is meant to be humiliating: he is to present to the wall, not to Stacker. 

...

The sleeves are soaked to the shoulder and clinging tight to his body, and Stacker watches Herc stay in position, hands on his forearms, tight enough to hold his hands to his arms, but loose enough that he can keep it up comfortably for some time. Herc has been in this position before; Herc knows he might be left like this. 

Once Stacker starts to pour the ice water in the bucket, though, slow and steady and controlled down the back of Herc's neck, over and around the collar, down Herc's shoulders and back and face -- Stacker sees Herc's knuckles go white. 

...

Is it dangerous? No. Herc is thirty-seven and healthy. 

Tall. Strong. He eats good food, drinks clean water, gets plenty of sleep. 

For lack of anything better to do, he spends hours in the gym every day, running or on weights. After two years of clean living, the gray from the stimulants and battle drugs and drinking too much has gone away: in fact, at thirty-seven, he is in better shape than when he started his contract, and even during the the last years of his time on active duty in the Forces, running on stims and black coffee, drinking in off-hours to come down. Eating slop in the canteen. Thanks to a combination of limited social contact and good, broad-range vaccinations being part of his contract preparation package, Herc hasn't had so much as a cold in two years. 

... 

Is it dangerous? No. 

Is it miserable and difficult? Yes. 

The stream of water from the handheld shower head makes Herc uncomfortable, but does not put him in pain. Instead, cold seeps into his skin when Stacker leaves him on the wet tiles to get the bucket and ice, and dread sets in, too. He knows there is a hook set in the ceiling of the shower. He remembers an old lesson that began with Stacker tapping a cane against him and saying that if he had started the beating when Herc was still wet from the rain, the beating would hurt more. As it was, Herc remembers that beating. 

And this time, how would he explain it to Chuck? He could hide his legs under long trousers, but what about the stiffness? What about the pain? Would it even be a cane if Stacker hung him from a hook in the shower?

What if Stacker left him up until morning or even later? What if Chuck heard him crying out?

Instead, Stacker comes back with a bucket of water mixed with ice, and Herc buries his face against the tiles and makes a noise, half misery, half relief. 

...

The exercise never goes to danger: when Stacker comes back from the kitchen, he also brings his tablet and props it on the built-in bench in the back of the shower. It beeps as Herc's skin temperature slides downward. It will beep loudly, almost continuously, if Herc's core temperature starts to change rapidly. 

...

Pain is not the point: Herc is uncomfortable, and he becomes more uncomfortable as Stacker pours the water, in a slow, steady stream. At first, there are ice cubes, but as Stacker pours, they slide out and pool around Herc's knees. Stacker moves around, sometimes putting water down Herc's left shoulder, then his right, then down his front, which had started to warm a little because Herc is facing a corner. 

Sometimes, straight down Herc's face, so that he has to hold his breath. 

...

Stacker pours, and the stream is steady, but slow, a little more than a trickle, but not much more. Herc knows better than to hold his noises back, so he makes sure Stacker hears him whimper and gasp and whine around the ice cubes in his mouth with the effort of staying on his knees and in presentation position and -- 

...

Eventually, Herc sucks in a deep breath. 

Stacker stops pouring. He waits.

When Herc doesn't say anything, Stacker starts to tip the water downwards, but Herc's head is turned out of the corner. At the edge of his vision, he sees the bucket, and it gives him courage: he squeezes both eyes shut and just barely, barely manages: 

_"Please, sir."_

...

First, Stacker's hands: Herc opens his mouth and just barely keeps himself from biting down on Stacker's fingers. They are cool from the edge of the bucket, but Herc's mouth is cold from the ice. Opening takes an effort of will. Not biting down on Stacker's fingers as he puts them into Herc's mouth, slowly, up to the first knuckle, then the second, then the third -- that takes another. The flat of Stacker's fingers move over Herc's tongue. In fact, Stacker puts them back far enough that Herc knows, a year ago, he would have been gagging. Herc knows that if Chuck and Mako weren't home, he might have gotten a beating. 

Instead, Herc breathes through his nose and tries to keep his throat from tightening and remember that his knees are supposed to be shoulder-width apart and his hands are -- 

He knows he is trembling, but eventually, Stacker takes his fingers out of Herc's mouth. Herc keeps his mouth open, and Stacker puts another two pieces of ice on Herc's tongue. 

Herc puts his face back against the wall; Stacker goes back to pouring. 

At one point, he goes back to the kitchen to get more ice and water. 

...

The point of the punishment isn't pain. It is, instead, an exercise in discipline: a reminder in the importance of self-control: Herc spent eighteen years in the Forces. Stacker is a civilian. Herc could probably stand up, turn around, and put his fist into Stacker's face before Stacker could react. Stacker is taller than he is, but Herc is trained. Experienced. How many fights has he broken up? How many fights has he started?

In another life, how many Slum buildings did Herc clear? 

Did he ever kill someone? 

...

Instead, Herc kneels in the corner and lets Stacker pour water over his body. Herc is uncomfortable, but forces himself to stay kneeling. He is cold, but will open his mouth. It takes him effort, but he manages to pant _Please, sir_ and keep still while Stacker tests his obedience by putting two fingers in Herc's mouth. 

Herc is cold, but will let ice melt in his mouth, slowly, while he keeps his face pressed to the tiles. 

When Stacker steps away for more ice and water, Herc stays in the corner, trembling. 

...

Afterwards, Herc is stiff with cold, and Stacker takes the work of undressing him and bringing Herc's temperature back to comfortable levels: he peels the wet clothes off, shirt first, then shorts, then helps Herc step out of his briefs. He dries Herc, rubbing him down not just to get the water off Herc's skin and out of his hair, but to bring warmth back into Herc's hands and arms and legs. Herc shakes: cold and adrenaline mixed together, and Stacker wipes carefully across Herc's chest, making sure he dries around the piercings. When Stacker brings a towel to Herc's hair, Herc makes a noise in his throat and starts to go at the knees. 

"Stay up," Stacker says. 

Herc braces himself on the counter, then says _yes, sir_. 

Stacker dries Herc's hair more gently than Herc expects. 

He surprises Herc by kneeling on the floor and starting to dry Herc's legs and feet. 

...

It is, Herc realizes, the same order and the same way he has been taught to dry Stacker after a shower. Left leg, then right leg, then left foot resting on a bit of the towel on Stacker's thigh while Stacker dries his foot with another part of the towel, then the same for the right foot. Stacker rubs hard to bring warmth back, but after that, he works gently, almost tenderly, drying each toe, each part of the foot. 

....

When Herc's feet are dry, Stacker stands, sets the towel on the counter, and pulls Herc against him. Herc is naked; Stacker is still wearing his shirt from the office, and even though he turned his sleeves and trouser cuffs up, there are spots of water here and there. Stacker poured slow and steady, but there were still some splashes, and Herc realizes, a little belatedly, that they are standing next to the sink and counter. Above the sink and counter is a long mirror, threaded, Herc knows, with heating elements to keep it from fogging.

When Stacker pulls Herc to him, Herc knows he should turn his head either to the left or the right, so that Stacker can lay him flush as he would like Herc to be. Which way? Stacker doesn't seem to be turning Herc one way or the other, so -- 

Herc chooses right, but realizes, immediately, that he has chosen the side with the mirror: the reflection is Stacker holding him, one arm around Herc's waist, the other arm bent at the elbow, with the forearm crossing up and over to grip the shoulder on which Herc has Angela's -- 

...

Cautious of fidgeting, cautious of not cooperating and thus earning another trip to the corner of the shower, if not something worse -- instead of turning his head to face the other way, Herc closes his eyes, but slowly so that Stacker can stop him if he doesn't approve. He knows the mirror is in front of his eyes, but if he turned his head the other way, it might be fidgeting. He would also be facing the shower itself: there was still ice melting on the tiles. The bucket sat next to the drain. 

Instead, Stacker holds him. 

Instead: 

"You can take care of your clothes and the towels in the morning," Stacker says, quietly. 

He slides one hand up from Herc's shoulder. He touches Herc's newly-dry hair,and Herc will lay his head on Stacker's shoulder. With his eyes closed, Herc places Stacker's hands on him, holding him at the waist and by the back of the neck, just above the collar. He counts how many fingers Stacker has in each place, measures how tightly he is being held: this is a new position for them, but Stacker seems comfortable. He isn't hard inside his trousers, and he doesn't seem to want to move or have Herc move. 

Through the fog of cold and adrenaline and fear and something else at the bottom of his stomach, Herc gradually understands that Stacker wants him to come down from what happened before. Herc holds his breath: eventually, his heart rate slows, even though each individual beat makes his heart squeeze so hard it almost hurts. His hands ache from gripping his forearms; even though he had long sleeves on, Herc expects that in the morning, there will be finger marks on his forearms. 

In the morning, after being sent back to his quarters, Herc -- 

...

In the morning, Chuck needs to be gotten out of bed. 

In the morning, Mako has to be gently reminded to eat her breakfast, because she is trying to finish her literature reading assignment. Herc checks the security envelope around the house. Picks Max up from where he has wandered and sets him to the side in the great room, where he won't be tripped over. 

During the summer, Herc can lose himself in the work of looking after Chuck and, to a lesser degree, Mako. Herc has things to think about besides the bruises he put onto his own forearms while on his knees; Herc has emotional reference points besides being grateful that Stacker chose not to hang him from a hook. 

...

After hostilities with the Kaiju are at least temporarily suspended, once the summer is over, what does Herc have? 

In fact, not only does Chuck refuse to speak to him, Chuck returns packages and presents and letters. Electronic messages in his school mailbox go unread. In order for Herc to visit him at school, Chuck needs to indicate his availability on the networked system. Open slots are marked in green; default is yellow. 

For more than two years, for visiting day after visiting day, at the earliest opportunity, Chuck marks every single slot red

Angela Hansen has been dead for years, and Chuck wants no contact with his father. 

...

For fifteen days after Chuck and Mako return to school, Stacker is away. War means work; potential peace means, at least in the near term, even more. He and Tamsin attend internal meetings, then the talks themselves with the Kaiju: Herc understands that some of the internal meetings will happen in Hong Kong, but the talks themselves will be on neutral ground in Seoul Tower. Herc has been adjusting to the new reality of having a son so angry, so alienated that he not only refuses to call, but returns birthday presents unopened, and on the sixteenth day following Chuck and Mako going back to school, Stacker comes through the door, twelve hours ahead of schedule due to favorable results and even more favorable winds. 

It's late. The house is dark, but the light in the great room comes on automatically when he steps through. He puts down his suitcase and hangs his suit bag on the coat rack. 

Herc is in place, too, quietly kneeling next to the umbrella stand. The foyer light gleams on his hair and collar; he showered, Stacker thinks, before going to bed. From the way it sticks up in the back, Stacker guesses that Herc lay down before completely drying it. Stacker can also see a blanket from Herc's bed and a pillow, too, on the couch in the great room. 

Has Herc been having trouble sleeping in his quarters? 

When Stacker reaches down to stroke Herc's hair, he gets a pleasant surprise: Herc, sleepy, slightly disoriented, lonely after fifteen days without so much as looking another human being standing close enough to touch -- kneeling by the door, without thinking, Herc presses his cheek to Stacker's palm and closes his eyes. 

He exhales, relaxing into the hand covering half his face. 

...

In practical, everyday terms, who does Herc Hansen have left?

...

Stacker Pentecost believes in informed consent. Herc Hansen signed the contract: Stacker believes he has had informed consent for everything he has done. 

The difference now is that finally, after four longest, hardest years of his life when he has lost, in succession, his wife, his brother, his job and career, and now, his son who is the only family he has left -- after two years in which he has signed away to control his body, Herc Hansen is finally, slowly but steadily, starting to accept that Stacker Pentecost wants him to give. 

...

In practical, everyday terms, what does Herc Hansen have left?


	27. Chapter 27

When Herc wakes in the morning, he is either in Stacker's bed or his own. 

...

If Herc wakes in Stacker's bed, he considers. 

Does Stacker have an arm on him? Frequently. How deeply is Stacker asleep? It varies. Sometimes, Stacker is breathing deep and slow, maybe even snoring lightly. Other times, the enormous techglass window that runs from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, on the other side of Stacker's bed has gone half-transparent in the dawn light. If Herc is turned that way, or if he can turn without moving Stacker, he can watch the wall go the rest of the way. Eventually, he'll be able to make out the curve of the harbor, and then, he'll be able to see the Towers further down on the peak. At some point after that, he is able to see the early morning air traffic moving between the Towers. Individual airtrains pull away from stations in Towers lower down on the Peak; further up, individual aircars leave from parking garages or individual pads. 

Other times, though, Herc wakes and the wall is dark, fully opaque. Other times, too, Herc is facing away from the window and Stacker's arm is lying on top of him in a way that makes it hard to turn. When that happens, Herc keeps his eyes on what he can. He tries to hold as still as he can, neither breathing too fast nor too shallow. Panting through his mouth means that his tongue will end up dry. He usually doesn't have to use the bathroom. 

There are no clocks in Stacker’s bedroom.

Sometimes, Herc falls asleep again. Most of the time, he doesn't. 

On weekends and holidays, Stacker likes to wake up with his contractor sliding underneath the covers, kissing his thigh, and then putting a mouth and warm, wet tongue on his dick. 

...

If Herc wakes in his own bed, again, he considers the situation. 

It's always dark -- there are no windows in his quarters. Herc has also set the lights on manual. They can be set to turn on automatically when they detect movement, or they can be set to turn off and on at set times: Herc kept it simple by putting a bit of tape over the light sensor and only using the manual switch underneath. Consequently, he has turn the light on when he comes into the room. Consequently, he has to turn the light off when he goes to sleep. Generally, he wakes in the dark and turns in the dark over to look at the alarm clock. The letters glow, and his alarm is set to go off half an hour before Stacker's does. 

Twenty minutes, never earlier, he lets himself get out of bed. 

...

If Herc wakes more than twenty minutes before -- 

...

Herc understands working while grieving. In the two years between Angela's death and his discharge, he worked forty hours a week training young officers, plus paperwork, plus fitness maintenance, plus making sure that Chuck was clothed and fed and clean and dressed and going to bed and getting up and doing a reasonable proportion of his schoolwork and coming home to a home that was reasonably tidy and sustaining it for day after day after month after -- 

What does Herc have now? 

...

Stacker is dressing, and Herc brings out the cufflinks that Stacker wants. 

...

Stacker sits, settling into place in his armchair, tablet in his lap, tumbler with two cubes of ice and Scotch. Herc settles into his place at Stacker’s feet. 

...

For Herc, the days and weeks and months after Chuck and Mako go back to the Academy feel strange. Unbalanced. The house is wide and empty and open, but when alone, Herc feels uncomfortable anywhere but his quarters and the gym. His body is tired, but he has a hard time falling asleep and a harder time staying that way. He is lonely, but Herc has spent two years living in the walls of Stacker's home. What’s new about that? 

True, his son is now angry with him. Herc is reminded every communication Sunday that goes by without a call, every visiting Sunday that passes without Chuck indicating even half an hour when he is available and willing to see his father. At the same time, Chuck has, off and on, been angry with him ever since Angela died. How can that be the reason? 

Angela has been dead for four years. Scott took bribes for over a decade. 

.... 

Nevertheless: in the days immediately following Chuck and Mako leaving the house, Stacker is busy. He spends sixteen days away, traveling and having meetings, negotiating with the Kaiju and carrying out Jaeger business. He comes back early, but the chime sounds, so Herc is on his knees in the foyer. In fact, when Stacker puts his hand down, Herc turns his face into it and breathes out, surprising Stacker. 

...

What Herc does with and for Stacker while he is at home -- the first emotion, the easiest emotion for Herc to identify has always shame, prickly and hot, mixed with fear that feels cold in the gut. Sometimes, even after all this time, anger. Occasionally, an irrational desire to commit physical disobedience. 

After two years of training and obedience, in the empty space left by having nothing and nobody else, Herc is struggling to keep from admitting that there are other -- he has -- 

...

After two years of _contract labor_ , Herc has learned to fear punishment from Stacker, whether it’s a beating for garden-variety disobedience, or hanging followed a heavy beating for willful disobedience, or even the misery of holding still in a corner for forgetting lessons he has already learned. Cold water adds to the discomfort and increases the difficulty of obeying, but the fundamental principle is reminding Herc that he has the capacity to remember, to co-operate, but chooses not to do so. 

Herc knows, at this point, what it feels like to have fear close in on him, body and soul, because of a shift in Stacker's tone of voice. 

Herc knows the difficulty of not kicking or fighting or resisting or even playing a dead weight when Stacker pulls him across the floor to the hook set in the wall. 

Even the memory of hanging makes his shoulders ache, and Herc doesn't like to look at the heavy paddle that Stacker reserves for beating him after hanging on the wall. In the drawer of the wardrobe where Stacker keeps restraints, Herc flinches at the sight of the suspension cuffs. 

In good times, Herc can --

...

In good times, Herc keep from thinking about the way his body responds to other things that Stacker does to him, too. 

The days and weeks and months where Chuck refuses to have anything to do with him are not a good time. Instead, even though he doesn't have accurate or descriptive words or even a framework for understanding his emotions, Herc feels utterly alone with what, to him, are his successive, inexcusable failures at being a husband and a brother and a Forces man, and -- 

_And a father_

_And a father_

_Every bloody fucking promise you ever made to Ange, and you can't even manage to be a decent provider for --_

...

His breathing picks up when Stacker reaches for the bedside drawer where he keeps lube. Does it matter that the response began in fear? Stacker made sure, with patience and attention, that Herc's body associates the sound of that drawer and the click on the cap of the lube bottle with intense, incredible pleasure, even if he ends up having to beg, long and desperate, for the orgasm. When Stacker opens the doors of the standing cabinet where he keeps most of the equipment that he uses on Herc or has bought and not yet had the opportunity to use -- now, he has a lazy Saturday afternoon with hours and hours until dinner: Herc is on his knees next to Stacker, quiet and obedient, naked except for his collar and piercings. 

Autumn rain is on the windows of the bedroom: Stacker had a vidcall in the morning and is still in slacks and a collared shirt, but no tie, no jacket. He runs the fingers of one hand through Herc's hair, which is starting, once again, to get long enough to curl over his fingers. 

...

Herc tries to track Stacker's hand in the cabinet: all those instruments, all those implements in their boxes and holders and drawers. By now, Herc knows the layout by heart: the main part of the cabinet is covered by a pair of double doors. Hanging on the inside of the left-hand door are instruments for punishment, like the singletail that Stacker has never used on him, and the heavy paddle that comes when Herc has disobeyed badly enough to end up on the wall, but only after Herc has become some sorry enough to apologize. On the inside of the right-hand door were, at one point, gags. Stacker has never used those and no longer wants them at hand: those have gone down into one of the lower drawers. Instead, he keeps the restraints on the inside of the right-hand door. Same loops, but cuffs, both ankle and wrist, along with the heavy suspension cuffs that Stackers uses to hang Herc from the wall. 

Rope for when restraint is the point. Carabiners, sorted by size and together on a bit of wire and hung on a loop, for when Stacker wants Herc pinned down quickly for other use. 

Herc knows his heart is beating fast. 

...

Herc knows his face and shoulders are flushed. How many of the things in the wardrobe has Stacker used on him already? How many will he use in the next hours? Herc stays on his knees and watches Stacker look over the singletail and paddle. He sees Stacker reach into the main compartment and lift the cover on the set of matching standard-use navy-colored plugs, arrayed in increasing size from the left to the right, starting from one that is narrower than two of Stacker's fingers to one that is significantly wider, even at the narrow point between the base and the flare, than Stacker's dick. 

When Stacker touches the largest one, Herc breathes out through the mouth and catches himself trying to choke a noise back. 

Does it matter that Herc has learned, through beatings, that he is no longer allowed to keep sounds to himself? 

...

So Herc lets out a whimper. It is high-pitched, miserable, and a little frightened. Herc follows by burying his face against Stacker's leg: he holds it there and keeps it there, breathing fast, until Stacker touches the back of his neck. With difficulty, Herc raises his head from the fabric, but he stays on his knees and turns up to look Stacker. Stacker's face is calm. Interested. Maybe even a little kind. 

Stacker strokes the left side of Herc's face, and Herc realizes, from a very great distance, he is panting, mouth open, cheeks flushed. 

_Well, Herc?_

Stacker is still holding the plug in his hand. 

He manages, _Whatever you'd like, sir_. 

Stacker considers the open mouth, the rapid blinking, the way Herc is breathing fast, then puts the plug back into the box, and puts the box back into the wardrobe. 

Instead, Stacker opens the box of hanging weights that, from time to time, he likes to clip to hoops in Herc's nipples. 

...

He chooses the second heaviest weights, which Herc has never had to wear before, but he also chooses the light cane that Herc has learned to associate with pleasure. He picks out an anal toy, thick and wide enough to be a challenge for Herc, but there is a curved element at the tip. There is always plenty of lube. 

Wrist cuffs, soft leather, padded on the edges, with a carabiner to lock Herc into place at the foot of the bed. Nothing too difficult.

...

Does it matter that Herc starts with fear as long as he is a little hard even before Stacker puts the restraints on him? 

If Herc shivers when Stacker touches him with the tip of the cane, he also presses his hips flat against the foot of the bed. If Herc takes six hard strokes after Stacker says, quietly, _this isn't punishment, Herc, but this will hurt, you need to count them out loud_ , they aren't enough to keep his cock from jumping when Stacker kneels behind him, still clothed, with his sleeves rolled up. Stacker unclips the weights from the hoops in Herc's nipples, one at a time, and Herc moans. Stacker puts his slicked fingers into Herc, and Herc whimpers. Stacker replaces his fingers with the toy, and Herc is tight at the beginning, but Stacker goes slowly, lets him adjust, and once Herc is loose and aroused enough to feel pleasure from being fucked with a length of curving surgical-grade silicone, Stacker works steadily, finding the angle that draws a desperate noise every time he moves his wrist. He pulls on the hoops in Herc's nipples. He runs the pad of his thumb over the nipples themselves, feeling how they are still warm and swollen and how more contact there, even light contact, makes Herc tremble. 

He caresses the marks on the back of Herc's legs. He wraps his hand around Herc's dick. 

Before coming, Herc begs in a garbled string composed out of _yes_ and _please_ and _sir_ : Stacker stops to savor the words, along with the noises that weren't words and the panting and the sheen of sweat over Herc's shoulders. Herc cries out from the effort of not coming until he has permission; he shakes from shoulder to knees. 

Once he has permission, Herc comes quietly, but intensely, almost instantly. 

...

Stacker is, in fact, so aroused he thinks that if he put his hand on his dick, if he pressed himself to Herc's back, it would only take a handful of strokes for him to come. Instead, while Herc's hips are still moving against air, Stacker unclips the cuffs. Stacker wipes his wet wrist and hand over Herc's stomach, and he pulls Herc up to the bed and into his arms. 

Panting, head spinning, trembling, Herc lets him. 

...

Stacker pulls the covers up. 

"You want water?"

"Please, sir," Herc says. He sounds drowsy, and he is also cold. Something is missing, but he isn't sure what. Everything in the world besides his body and Stacker is fuzzy and very, very far away. 

...

Stacker brings back water, the cup he uses to rinse out his mouth, but filled only halfway so that Herc doesn't have to sit fully upright to drink. Stacker tips it carefully into Herc's mouth, and Herc drinks carefully: they've had practice. Then, when Herc has had enough, Stacker slides into bed, and he pulls Herc against him: Herc breathes out. He tenses. He waits to be pushed under the covers. After all, Stacker is still visibly hard. Instead, Stacker tucks Herc against to him, turning Herc onto his side, putting Herc's head on his shoulder and folding Herc around him. Then, working one-armed, without shifting Herc more than he has to, Stacker reaches over and gets a tablet from the nightstand. He pulls up an article on developments in Jakarta Tower and props the tablet on his stomach. He puts a hand on Herc's shoulder over a palmful of freckles. 

When he went to get the water, Stacker took off the belt and slacks, but is still wearing a collared shirt and an undershirt and boxers. Herc is naked except for his collar and the hoops in his nipples and now the cuffs on his wrists. There is come drying on his stomach, and coherent thought feels strange: Herc is aware of the present only in the sense of being exhausted and slightly uncomfortable. In the way of canings, the six strokes Stacker gave him itch and hurt at the same time. Parts of him also feel stretched. Generally, Herc is slightly uncomfortable, particularly if he thinks with any specificity about which parts of him feel stretched, and which parts of him are not, in fact, sore, but he is also exhausted. The world is far away. He is not in pain. He has had worse. 

He breathes in, then slowly lets air out. 

...

Turned on his side, for the moment, Herc is aware for the future only in the sense that he knows later, Stacker will want to put the nipple weights back on him, which will hurt. Will Stacker want to be sucked off after that, or will he want to fuck Herc's mouth? Will he bring out the cane again, or will it be the new flogger he bought during the week? Will Herc eat his dinner on the floor, kneeling and pressing his mouth to Stacker's palm, grateful for each mouthful? 

...

Herc has been having trouble sleeping. His body warms; his mouth is no longer dry. 

Head laid on Stacker's shoulder, Herc closes his eyes. Stacker keeps his hand on Herc's shoulder and says, quietly, "You did well." 

Outside, there is rain.


	28. Chapter 28

Herc waits.

Herc kneels. 

...

In the first week of October, Tamsin and Stacker celebrate a local holiday. Stacker stays home from the office, but works in the morning. Herc takes delivery of a specially packed picnic hamper from a shop on a retail level of the Tower, and in the afternoon, Tamsin comes to the house, bundled into a pale gray coat with horn buttons. When Stacker is done dressing, they leave together, taking Tamsin's airshuttle and the picnic hamper and umbrellas. Hours later, Stacker comes home, slightly hoarse, a little drunk but mostly tired, smelling like incense and chrysanthemum wine. Herc helps him out of his shoes and puts him to bed. 

The next day is Friday, and Stacker goes in an hour late. The following Sunday, Herc waits, but Chuck doesn't call. 

...

In the third week of November, Stacker and Tamsin attend a formal banquet. Herc has not left the house in -- months, but Stacker's office staff is busy with coordination and set-up, so Stacker gives Herc a set of errands that take him across the breadth and the width of the city: he keeps on hand everything appropriate for standard black tie, but the banquet celebrates the conclusion of summer hostilities. It will be full dress, and Stacker has two fittings at his tailor because it has been years since he wore tails. Mother-of-pearl links and dress studs go to his jeweler for cleaning. The shirt and detachable collar must be specially cleaned and starched; Herc transfers onto two airtrains and spends forty-five minutes walking through a semi-industrial level in the New Territories Tower, finding a specialist at the address given to him by Stacker's office as doing them to standards. Two days later, he makes the return trip for the cleaned and starched items. 

On the day the event, Herc helps Stacker dress: underwear and knee-high silk socks, trousers and shirt with the hidden buttons to keep the front fastened to the waistband. Attaching the collar. White braces. Backless waistcoat. 

Stacker sits on the edge of his bed, and Herc kneels to put shoes on his feet, doing the left first, then the right. Stacker strokes Herc's hair. Herc stopped by a barbershop the last time he went to visit Chuck on a Sunday, six months before. 

Then, hostilities.

Then, bringing Chuck home and watching over him and Mako during the long, long summer. 

...

Then, in August, Herc and Chuck in the roof garden. Chuck is wild with shame and anger and fear and guilt, fourteen and feeling completely and utterly alone. Herc is equally full of shame and fear and guilt, but lacks anger. Instead, he has extra portions of shame, fear, and guilt. There is a sinking feeling in his stomach and heaviness in his arms and shoulders. What did he expect bringing Chuck back? The glorious skyline is behind them, with the Peak sloping away: a better view than any restaurant that Herc could ever afford to take Ang to, even on an anniversary, farther up than even Chuck, with his grandparents' love and financial support and his mother's encouragement, had ever gone in a Tower. 

Herc tries to keep Chuck from pulling away with that expression on his face, but Chuck jerks back, disgusted.

Instead, he shouts that his father is a liar. A hypocrite. All that fucking talk about Uncle Scott and honesty and duty and pride and honor, about doing what was right, all the things he said about still thinking about Mum, and there he fucking was. 

_All those things about Mum_. 

Herc grabs for Chuck again, because he knows it would somehow be easier if he could get physically closer to his son, if he could communicate through putting his arms around Chuck and holding him. There are words that Herc thinks he might be able to find that way, but Chuck is fourteen and wants no part of it. Instead, Chuck yells, face red, hands balled into fists, having worked himself up to the point where he can get the words out: 

_You like doing those things. You love him. You're going to stay with him when your contract is over._

Abruptly, Herc feels whole-body nausea. 

...

Nevertheless, what does he have? 

In November, Stacker is dressed in silk socks and waistcoat and braces and shirt and trousers. 

The tailcoat is hanging in the closet; the oxfords came back beautifully from the cobbler, and Herc has been working on them, too. When Herc looks up from putting the left shoe on Stacker's left foot, Stacker runs a hand through Herc's hair. It curls over his fingers and the edges of his palm, and Stacker likes the way it feels. He enjoys having another way to move Herc around, and Stacker keeps his right hand on Herc's head. Slowly, Herc closes his eyes. He breathes out through his mouth, and Stacker watches the expressions move over Herc's face: when Herc's eyes are closed, he forgets that other people can see his face. 

Eyes closed, Herc stays at Stacker's feet, holding the right shoe in both of his hands, swaying just a little. 

When Stacker takes his hand away, Herc takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, then goes back to dressing Stacker. 

The aircar is back before morning, but Herc keeps to his quarters until evening. 

...

He comes out at half-past six and kneels down, quietly, on the pad next to the couch in the great room. Stacker is browsing the network on a table while a program plays on the vidscreen. He looks up, sees Herc quiet next to him, wearing track pants and one of the long-sleeved shirts that Stacker bought for him in the first year of the contract. He settles a hand on the back of Herc's neck. Herc pauses, breathes in, then lays his head on Stacker's knee. Stacker starts to stroke the back of his neck over the collar, and Herc breathes out. 

Again, he closes his eyes. 

...

Herc skipped dinner, and he has barely eaten anything all day or had much to drink. His mouth is, in fact, dry from thirst. Herc did not leave his quarters for breakfast or lunch or dinner, and after a few minutes, at the next commercial break, Stacker puts his tablet to the side and shifts. Herc lifts his head so that Stacker can stand; he starts to rise, too, but Stacker looks down. 

"Stay," he says. 

Herc replies vocally, then does. 

A few minutes later, Stacker comes back from the kitchen. He has a tray in his hands, and there is a warmed meal on it, brown rice and chicken and some steamed vegetables, along with a glass of water. Stacker sets the tray down on the coffee table, low enough so that Herc can stay on his knees and eat. There is a knife and fork and spoon on the tray, lying on top of a folded paper napkin. Herc looks at the food and the utensils, then up at Stacker. 

Without a word or sign or other signal, Herc clasps his hands behind his back. 

Stacker blinks. 

...

Still standing, Stacker reaches a hand down and covers Herc's eyes: his right hand is large, and he can cover Herc's forehead and eyes with one palm and his thumb over the bridge of Herc's nose. He does not cover Herc's mouth, which is expressive even when quiet. Herc shaved just before coming out to Stacker: there is no stubble, but his cheeks are faintly damp and cool. Below that is Herc's collar, sitting loose because only person who will lay hands on it, who would have the right to choke Herc, absent accident or a grave breach of etiquette or unthinkable occurrence, is Stacker. 

Below that is Herc's even more expressive body. 

His shoulders are hunched. His breathing is unsteady. After two years of living together, Stacker knows what the combination means. He watches Herc's cheeks flush, and he waits to see if the color will go down Herc's neck, past first his metal collar, then the collar of his shirt. 

It does. 

By the standards of this universe, Stacker Pentecost is a good man. 

...

He takes in an orphan with a marginal claim to Jaeger protection and not only provides for her, but loves her. He works ably with and for Tamsin. They are friends and equals now; despite their past together, Stacker has never turned on her. 

...

He sees Herc's grief, and does not put him on drugs to correct his mood. He knows Herc is mourning, but has not taken Herc to a conditioning specialist: Stacker has options even beyond forcible or secret administration of pharmaceuticals. He could, for example, pay for implanted amnesia to make Herc forget everything and anything that ever happened to him outside his contract. Stacker could, in fact, not only pay to remove the tattoo reading _Angela_ , but he could pay for removal of the memory itself: Stacker has seen the file photograph of Herc's wife, brown-haired, beautiful, Tower-born and educated. Herc could wake up in the morning without knowing her name. He could be made to forget that he had a son or a brother or that anything in the world existed outside the square footage of Stacker's home. 

For any reason or no reason at all, for all practical purposes, Stacker could have had the soul carved out of his property. 

Instead, Stacker feels eyelashes and dampness underneath his palm: his contractor is blinking back tears. 

...

Instead, when Stacker takes his hand from Herc's eyes, Herc has a choice: waiting until he is sure he won't cry, or opening his eyes promptly? Herc sucks in a deep breath and chooses obedience. 

In fact, once he has his eyes open, without entirely being aware of himself, he brings his hands up, so that the fingers of each hand grip the opposing forearm. Then, he shifts his arms a little higher up on his back, forcing his shoulders out of the hunch. When he pushes his chest out like that, he feels the fabric sliding across his chest. Herc sucks in another breath, then lets it in, processes that the shirt is rubbing not just against his chest, but the metal bars in his nipples, which he knows have gotten tight. 

Herc makes sure his knees are appropriately shoulder-width apart, then turns his face up to Stacker. 

...

After a long moment, Stacker sits. He starts to feed Herc. 

...

Two Tuesdays before, Chuck marked his visiting Sunday unavailable. 

Later that winter, Mako comes home between terms.


	29. Chapter 29

What is the difference between the bond he signed at sixteen and his contract with Stacker? 

...

The first dozen, the first fifty, the first hundred times the question comes to Herc's mind, whether while on his knees or alone, Herc feels anger and shame. How can he even think of them in the same sentence? A bond with the Forces was decent. Respectable. A way to grow up and take responsibility, to make something of your life. Sixteen year olds signed their bonds at the recruitment office, usually with friends and family in attendance. There was usually a small cash bonus handed over at signing; it was traditional to use it to take people out afterwards.

How had he signed his contract for Stacker? 

In a room by himself, alone, stomach full of pain and fear. 

...

The first dozen, the first fifty, the first hundred, the first five hundred -- 

...

One was for twenty years. The other is for ten. 

Both put metal in him: the Forces put a tracker chip in his arm, and Stacker him done on the dining room table. 

...

Herc remembers, in fact, being in line for his tracker with half a hundred other trainees, milling around in a steel-walled room room before being shouted into a line, more or less single-file, going into the booth one at a time with a bored tech. Herc remembers a moment of anxiety, then the flood of excitement: three months of basic training, then tracker chip. If he made it through his hundred-and-eighty days months of probation and was accepted, the next milestone was his unit mark. Once he had his unit mark, the twenty year clock started. 

He remembers, too, what came immediately after getting his tracker: sitting down to drink at the long tables in the canteen with the other members of his trainee squad after they had gotten their trackers. Low ceiling. Noise. Elbows. Good cheer and belonging. A table a couple rows over started singing, something raunchy about the engineer who rode a missile tower, and Herc remembers sitting at, the new tracker itching on his arm, impatience and excitement inside him. The officer came around with the liquor and the ladle and stacked glasses: they cheered him, and he portioned out the first round. 

After that, the evening blurred. 

Nevertheless, twenty years later, Herc still remembers the feeling of pride and happiness: in fact, in the last two years he was with the Forces, after Ang died, Herc requested and received a training post because he had a son to care for. Also, the Forces had been good to him. He wanted to give back. The Forces respected loyalty and good service and looked after the men and women who gave their lives to it, and they gave him an assignment. 

Herc also remembers being the officer coming around to his trainees, now graduated to _fresh probie_. 

Herc remembers the faces turning to him, eager and excited. Herc saw a half-dozen classes through in his two years of being a trainer, but he remembers being proud of them. He can even remember, here and there, specific faces. Specific things that happened. 

Herc remembers dipping the ladle and pouring out the liquor. 

Herc remembers feeling _proud_. 

...

One weekend afternoon, mid-November, there is rain on the windows. They are in the study, and Stacker is trying out some new techniques, so Herc is naked, lying on Stacker's desk. The pens and tablets are cleared away, and Herc is bound, calves to his thighs, ankles tied together and connected, by means of a loop, to a rope around his waist. 

Carefully, Stacker runs his hands over Herc and the ropes. He tests the knots and checks the degree of strain -- when he is sure that the ropes are secure and sitting correctly, that no parts of Herc are uncomfortable except for the ones he intends to be, Stacker starts to explore variations. A blindfold increases the mental, but not the physical strain. Tying Herc's wrists to the waist rope increases the physical strain, but not the mental: in fact, is deeply satisfying for Stacker to see that Herc relaxes once his hands are pulled away behind him. He sees the shoulders relax. He sees Herc's forehead go smooth. 

Stacker touches two fingers to Herc's upper lip and watches Herc obediently tuck his lips over his teeth, then lean up, straining slightly, so that he pull Stacker's fingers into his mouth. 

Herc sucks and licks and uses his mouth; the wind blows. 

Carefully, Stacker pulls his fingers away, then after a moment of consideration, after a moment of letting Herc readjust, touches his wet fingers to the tracker scar on Herc's arm. 

...

Herc never likes being touched there: the sensation, Stacker suspects, is physically unpleasant. There is also the history, the reminder of past things and lives and failures. 

Nevertheless, Herc usually manages to keep himself still and obedient when Stacker does it. He is capable of doing it, and they both know. Past performance has created present expectations for future performance. After two years, they share common ground. 

Tied in that way, though, blindfolded, on his stomach with his legs bent and his knees hanging off the edge of the desk, Herc can't hide his dislike. He was uncomfortable before, blindfolded and sweating into the rope, feeling the strain in his legs and stomach. Being touched on the scar pushes him into fear and something like panic. He remembers that he is vulnerable, naked and helpless and on display and willing to suck and take comfort from anything Stacker gives him: he is blindfolded, but Stacker is watching him and catching every tremor, every gasp, every slight shift he makes. When Stacker brings his hand to Herc's mouth again, Herc, again, puts his lips over his teeth and sucks and licks and uses his mouth. 

Nevertheless, there is a moment of hesitation. Stacker sees the moment where Herc has to will himself to obedience, and when Stacker pulls his wet fingers away, he touches them back to the scar. Herc has been bracing himself for it, but doesn't manage to keep himself from reacting strongly: in fact, it is stronger this time. His face tightens, and he makes a small noise, as if in pain. That side of his body twists up and away from Stacker's hand. 

Stacker lifts his wet fingers. 

Herc's body relaxes, and when Stacker keeps his fingers away from the scar, Herc's shoulders come back down to the desk. Underneath the blindfold, Herc's mouth goes soft. 

Then, Stacker shifts, and Herc tenses: suddenly, Herc remembers that he flinched from being touched. He know that he may be punished for flinching, for objecting to having Stacker's hands on him. 

...

Wind blows rain against the windows, and Stacker steps around the desk to put two fingers in front of Herc's mouth again. Herc knows he is being given an opportunity to make up for past failure: consequently, he pulls Stacker's fingers into his mouth with speed, sucking them wet to the palm, bobbing his head up and down as much as he can while tied down and bound as he is. It is awkward. It is uncomfortable. 

Eventually, Stacker takes his fingers away out, walks around, and touches them to Herc's perineum, above his balls and spread knees, below his asshole and his tied ankles. Herc breathes out, a little unsteady, so Stacker lets Herc have a moment to adjust. 

Then: 

"Do you remember how to ask, Herc?"

...

Herc does. 

Eventually, for a better angle, so that he can more easily work Herc's dick at the same time as having two fingers inside him, Stacker carefully turns Herc onto his side  
...

One night, in fact, while lying on his side in his windowless quarters, the rope marks only half-gone from his wrists and ankles and waist and thighs, Herc dreams about the past in detail: cheap cream-colored carpet throughout, cheap off-white plastic flooring in the kitchen, cheap air recirc that always brought in the smell of the neighbor's cooking. Nevertheless, Herc's memories fill the dream with emotion. After all, for Ang, it was a temporary until they'd saved enough to rent a better place higher-up in the Tower. For Herc, on the other hand, even as a child, when had he lived so long in a single place? When was the last time the word _home_ meant something good and decent and loved? 

He had lived there with his wife and child. He had provided for them. He had done the right thing by them. He had loved them, and he had been secure in the knowledge that they loved him in return. 

For Herc -- 

...

For Herc, the dream is a memory, but the memory is also a dream. 

In the dream, Herc is back from ten hard days in the field. In the memory, he drops his grip in the hall. 

In both dream and memory, home is the place with the wedding picture in a frame on the wall and the hallway table, untidy with keys and mobile devices and airtrain passes and mail and Ang's sunglasses. The dining table was bare and cold, but Ang and Chuck lay asleep together on the couch, and in the dream and memory both, Herc walks over the carpet, picking his way through the piles of laundry that Ang had clearly been folding when she fell asleep. 

Herc remembers standing there, looking at them. There were no windows; it would be another two moves before they could afford a house with even an interior window, but it had been ten days in the rain and the cold and the Slums, wearing a combat suit for so long that the creases were still on his skin, breathing so much recycled air that the top of his mouth had gone numb. They had used tear gas; they had used batons. Herc remembers the smell of the rebreathers did that if the cartridges weren't promptly swapped on the six hour mark, and Herc remembers the ache in his bones from sleeping in lit-up combat suit. All that noise. All that shouting. 

And here was Ang with her hair pulled messily back with her cheek pressed against a cushion, so deeply asleep that her mouth was open. 

Here was Chuck at four months old and not sleeping through the night yet, brown-haired and brown-eyed and strong-lunged, bigger in ten days than Herc remembered leaving him. 

In the dream and the memory, Herc carefully lifted Chuck out of his mother's arms: how Ang had sighed and leaned more into the cushion. How heavy and solid Chuck felt. How careful and slow Herc had been, trying not to wake either Ang or the baby, but how badly he wanted to touch them both. How Chuck smelled like breast milk and baby powder and Ang's skin. How -- 

In the dream and memory, Chuck opens his eyes. 

A decade later, Herc wakes. 

...

His arms are empty, and so are his hands. His chest aches. The room is dark, but not entirely: the alarm clock glows, and so does the network terminal, green light for the letters of the clock, shifting blue in the lock pattern on the terminal. Nevertheless, Herc is breathless with grief and misery, and he realizes that he is on the verge of crying. He hasn't started yet, but the tears are there. 

The house breathes around him. 

He watches one number change on the bedside alarm clock. 

First Ang. Then Scott. In his loneliness and misery, in the dark, by himself, Herc can even miss his brother. 

...

First Ang. Then Scott. 

Now Chuck. 

Even with the minute turning from _three_ to _four_ , it is not yet six in the morning, and Herc knows he is on the verge of crying. If he sits up and does something, it might feel better. Stacker has never said anything about keeping to his quarters at night: the gym, for example. He could turn on the lights and run. Stacker came home late for most of the summer, and after putting Chuck and Mako to bed, Herc spent a lot on the machines in the gym. He spends a lot of time there now, too, trying to fill his days and make himself tired enough to sleep at night. 

On the other hand, if he sits up, he might start crying. 

Consequently, Herc stays on his back.

He lets the air out of his lungs, then draws it back in. 

He tries to make his mind go blank. 

On his wrists and ankles and waist and thighs, there are --

...

"Stand," Stacker says. 

"Present."

In the months before Christmas, Stacker is less busy than he usually is, so he has more time to spend at home: more time to think of things he would like to do with Herc. 

...

One weekday evening, they are in Stacker's study, but Stacker has set his work aside for the night. Herc had been kneeling on his usual pad, but rose to his feet on command. 

"Hands to the back of your neck."

Herc brings his hands up, lacing his fingers over the back of his neck. He stays that way while Stacker strokes his face and the side of his neck. 

"Close your eyes," he says. Herc does, and Stacker lifts up the bottom of Herc's shirt. He runs his palms over Herc's bare stomach; he brings his fingers up and touches the hoops in Herc's nipples. He pulls them enough to get Herc's nipples hard, then touches other parts of Herc's torso before coming back to check: still tight. The hair on Herc's chest and stomach is fine and soft; his skin is warm, and he keeps his eyes closed and his hands in place as Stacker touches him. He keeps quiet, too: Stacker has less to do at work and more time to think of new things he would like to try with Herc. 

He strokes the side of Herc's face and sees how Herc breathes out. 

Tonight's innovation is wordless obedience. 

...

Herc has not, in fact, said anything for days besides _yes, sir_ or _please, sir_. When was the last time he spoke to anyone besides Stacker? These days, nobody calls the house. These days, Herc doesn't leave the house. 

On coming home from the office with winter wind at his back, Stacker looked at the face turned up to him and said -- 

...

The command was not, in fact, for silence: there is a difference between being quiet and being silent. 

The lamp on Stacker's desk is on. So is the one in the corner next to the armchair, but not the track lighting in the ceiling. There are shadows in the room, and Stacker checks and strokes and tugs to get Herc's body the way he wants. Then, with Herc's eyes still closed, he walks Herc back, one step, two steps, so that Herc's ass rests against the side of the desk. He gives Herc a moment to settle and orient himself. 

Stacker hooks two fingers on the waistband of Herc's track pants and pulls them down together with his underwear -- one movement, quick and sure down Herc's thighs, so that the elastic band presses against his knees. Herc keeps eyes still closed, hands folded over the back of his neck with his forearms roughly parallel to his shoulders, and when Stacker exposes him between waist and knees, his eyes move underneath their lids. His shoulders tighten, but his hands stay up. 

Stacker touches the inside of Herc's left thigh, and Herc makes a sound in his throat, and -- 

Stacker pulls away. Stacker looks up. Herc goes still. 

.... 

After all, the movement of his eyes and shoulders was fear: was it going to be a beating? Was Stacker going to put something inside him? Was Stacker going to get rope? All three together, since Stacker had come home early and was, presumably, not too tired? 

The noise was more complicated: fear, yes, but also anticipation. Herc was not using words, but he had been told to keep from using them. Also, Stacker saw other physical signs. Herc flushed when Stacker put hands on his stomach. When Stacker played with the piercings, slim and silver, just big enough to be seen clearly under Herc's thin shirt, they both noticed the catch in Herc's breathing. Stacker pulled Herc's track pants and underwear down, and Herc lifted his hips from the desk to make it easier. 

Nevertheless, the noise is something else. When Herc realizes that he has made a sound, his face changes again. He may have broken the rules. The command was, after all, for -- 

To reassure him, Stacker strokes Herc's left hip, then pulls opens a drawer in his desk. 

...

Later, Herc is on his back on Stacker's desk. His arms are bound, arms stretched out. He is still wearing a shirt; but it is pushed up high, above the line of his nipples. Below the waist, he is naked, because his track pants and underwear have been pushed off entirely. 

"Open your eyes," Stacker says, and Herc does: he blinks. He pants. 

"Look at me," Stacker says, and Herc does, but lets out a small noise from the back of his throat. 

Stacker is still fully dressed, shirt and work trousers and belt, but the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to the elbow: his left hand is slick with lube and wrapped loosely around Herc's dick. There is a toy buried inside Herc's ass, deep enough so that only the curved handle sticks out. Stacker puts his right hand on the inside of Herc's left thigh, and he sees Herc's eyes tracking his hand. He shifts closer to Herc, and he feels Herc's body jerk. 

Herc's left leg is tied in a hobble, ankle to thigh, and the toes of his right foot barely, barely, just manage to brush the floor. There is sweat on Herc's body, gleaming on his shoulders, along his arms, in the hollow of his throat, but there is little on Stacker. 

"What do you want?" 

Herc tries to make a noise, but fails at anything more expressive than a gasp. Then, when Stacker brings his hand back to the toy buried inside Herc and moves his hand, just a little, slightly forward, slightly back -- Herc makes a noise, clearer and louder. It is not quite a moan, but also not quite a sob. 

"Do you remember how to ask, Herc? You can use words."

...

In fact, Stacker knows basic rope work and can tie Herc down efficiently and fairly quickly, but is only starting to teach himself anything more refined. Herc adjusts to looking up at Stacker's hands and seeing a length of rope between them: Herc learns the difference between cotton and hemp and nylon. Herc learns to sleep while -- 

...

One night, Stacker brings home a stack of particularly irritating reports, and he works through them by giving himself with five minutes of rope practice on Herc for every report he finishes. At one point, Stacker realizes that he has more reports than rope, so he touches Herc's cheek and explains why he is stepping away: he will be back. 

When he comes back, Herc seems to be dozing on his knees. His left wrist is still tied to a metal loop set in Stacker's desk, right wrist bound loosely bound behind him. Herc's face is propped on the inside of his left arm; he is leaning a portion of his weight against the desk, and above, the lamp on Stacker's desk is on, but no other lights in the room are. Shadows lie over parts of Herc's bare shoulders and back. He has track pants on; he is naked only above the waist. 

...

Herc is having trouble sleeping in his own bed, but nevertheless finds himself able to doze on his knees or in bed with Stacker. 

Chuck refuses to speak to his father; Mako comes home between terms.


	30. Chapter 30

"Mako?" Stacker says. 

She makes a noise. 

"You're tired. Go to bed."

Stacker's voice is gentle, and Mako makes another small noise, followed by something might be _I feel fine._

When Herc looks up from his place on the floor, shoulder next to Stacker's knee, Herc sees the mutinous look on Mako's face. He also sees the glaze over her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, the difficulty she has in staying upright: on the airshuttle ride back, she had started running a low grade fever. She had picked at her dinner and, from what Herc can tell, almost fallen asleep while waiting for Stacker to take his turn on the go board. 

On the other hand, it is her first evening back from school. She doesn't have many evenings with Stacker. 

"Ma -- "

Mako sneezes so hard she almost falls backwards off the couch. 

...

Mako is fourteen, almost fifteen, generally healthy and, for her age, remarkably mature. 

On the other hand, she is fourteen, almost fifteen, and miserable with a cold and annoyed at being ill, physically and emotionally exhausted after exams and -- 

"Miss Mori?" Herc asks. 

The noise from the bed is pure misery, but not clear rejection. The door is also half-open, so Herc nudges it further with his foot and comes in with the tray. Mid-afternoon in December means a reasonable amount of sun, and Herc steps over the roller bag, still only half-unpacked. There are books on the floor, a few tissues that missed the trash can, and a work tablet cord trailing out of the bed. The room is messier than at any previous point during the summer: carefully, Herc finds a place on the nightstand for the tray, and when Mako comes out of her burrow of blankets and sits up, her cheeks are flushed pink, and her eyes are glassy. She looks as wretched as the noise sounded. 

Stacker is at the office and will be for hours yet. Mako hasn't eaten anything since the night before. 

Gently, Herc hands her a glass of ginger ale -- room temperature, mostly flat, not as good as ginger beer, but he can't find that in the shops below, and ginger ale is still easy on the throat and sweet. 

"If you're hungry, I'll bring soup," he says. 

Mako makes a face, then tries to say something, but a raspy noise comes out of her throat. She makes another face. Herc can guess that her throat is sore and that trying to talk hurts. He can also see the tablet she has under the covers with her. It looks like schoolwork, rather than a vid program or fun. 

"You should rest, Miss Mori," he adds, and Mako looks up at him, cranky and unhappy. She does not lie back down and pull the covers back over her. Instead, she goes on holding the glass of ginger ale, and after a moment, looks down at the glass. Her expression of unhappiness intensifies, and Herc considers. 

Mako closes her eyes, but she continues to sit upright, tired and clearly sick, lacking the energy to put the ginger ale to the side, but also unwilling to lie back down or rest. She is fourteen, almost fifteen, but it has been a grueling term. Her exams were exhausting in every sense of the word; there are circles under her eyes, and Herc noticed, on her coming through the door, that she has lost enough weight for it to show in her face and the way her clothes fit. Her effort has paid off, though. Mako has done well, and she knows it. She is glad the exams are over, and had been looking forward to finishing exams. Holidays. Time with Stacker and Tamsin. She was delighted at having being brought home personally by Stacker, rather than being sent for, and now -- 

She is exhausted and ill and fourteen and frustrated, lonely. Afternoon sunlight comes through the windows that run along the side of the room, and carefully, so that he won't startle her, Herc takes the ginger ale from her before she can spill it. Mako makes a noise in her throat, but it hurts, and with her eyes still closed, she winces. 

Glass in hand, Herc hesitates. 

...

Herc remembers sitting with Chuck when he was sick: that series of ear infections when Chuck was seven and Herc was home for two months in a row. 

He had been away so much when Chuck was younger. 

...

Herc remembers Chuck's room, tiny and cramped and converted from what had been extra storage for the kitchen. Herc remembers the fight he had when, without saying a word to him about it, Ang paid someone money they didn't have to come in and do it because his leave home had been canceled again. His argument was that they couldn't afford it, and that's why she deliberately went behind his back: because she knew that he would say no. Her argument was that his son was six, and he was starting to get real assignments at school. He needed a room of his own where he could do homework. Or did Herc _want_ his son to do poorly in school? Maybe education wasn't _important_ to him. 

They had, Herc remembers, that particular fight regularly. 

...

The room, the narrow bed, the storage space for clothes above. Chuck had a series of ear infections, and from somewhere, Angela had found a tiny desk that would fit in the room. The chair was kid-sized. 

In order to have a place to sit, Herc had dragged in a chair from the kitchen; in order to have room to put it down, he had to leave the door open: the floor was a narrow strip between the side of the bed and the door, and being Chuck, being seven, left dirty clothes and his school bag on the floor. Chuck was in bed, face flushed with fever, and Herc remembers clearing the clothes and bag away as quietly as he could, then coming through with his head bowed because the ceiling was so low. 

Herc remembers touching Chuck's face and feeling fever under his palm. 

...

Herc is not Mako's father. At fourteen, Mako is proud and tough: the Academy demands self-reliance. 

Nevertheless, Herc has been part of Mako's life for years. She remembers that when she was twelve, he kept her safe after Kaiju security boarded their airtrain. She remembers that when she was thirteen, hostilities escalated and the Kaiju bombed a Jaeger facility outside Seattle Tower. Stacker and Tamsin had left abruptly for the office, leaving cake and celebratory dinner on the table. Mako understood. She was proud that Stacker and Tamsin were important and involved in determining the Jaeger response. Nevertheless, _sensei_ went and spoke to him, and Herc came out. He was not angry. He was not resentful. 

He sat with her. He made sure she ate at least some of her celebratory dinner. He brought her a drink from the kitchen, and she remembers falling asleep against his shoulder, feeling the weight of his arm, the warmth of his body coming between her and twenty-four hour holo-network analysis of the bad news. 

In all the summer that came afterwards, he treated her as well as he would --

...

Herc touches Mako's forehead. She has a fever, and when he asks how she feels, the sound that comes out of her throat is awkward. She is in pain, and she is also lonely, Herc can read it on her face and the miserable line of her shoulders. She wants comfort.

"I'll make some salt water for your throat," he says, softly. "My wife used to do that for Chuck." 

Mako sighs, eyes closed. She starts to open her mouth to thank him, but Herc puts a hand on her shoulder to indicate she should save her throat: instead, she nods, eyes still closed because she is too tired. 

He comes back, bringing glass of warm salt water. 

"I'll get something for you to gargle into," he says, and when he does and she gargles, he takes the basin back away and pours it away down the toilet in her bathroom: he comes back, having washed and dried his hands.

He draws the curtains so the room is darker. He tidies some of the mess on the floor, pulls the duffle bag out of the way of the door, sets Mako's tablet to recharging in the dock. He gets her a pitcher of fresh water along with a clean glass, in case she wants something to drink besides ginger ale, and he sits down on the bed. When he offers Mako his shoulder to lean against because she is tired of lying down, but does not feel well enough to sit up for periods by herself. She sighs with her entire body and puts her face against him, cheek on his shoulder, forehead bumping against Herc's collar. 

"Here," Herc says and adjusts it little, so that it doesn't lie quite the same way, then puts his arm back around Mako. In fact, he leans back against the wall, so that she can sleep tucked against him. 

...

A week later, Mako is better. She is eating dinner at table with Stacker, but her voice is still slightly hoarse. 

Stacker is busy with both morning and afternoon meetings on the following day. After a moment of consideration, Mako asks if Herc can come with her to help finish her Christmas shopping. 

...

"Do you mind?" Stacker asks. 

"No," Herc says quietly. He is kneeling by the side of the bed, face turned up: after a moment, he goes back to untying Stacker's shoes. Stacker touches him gently on the top of the head: Herc does not look up, but reads it, instead and correctly, as _thank you_.


	31. Chapter 31

Herc knows they largely are what they look like: a young girl, much loved, much treasured, accompanied by a family contractor for a day of holiday shopping. 

...

Even if people do not recognize the crest of the Academy or the Academy colors, even if they think Mako might be attending a less famous school, her school jacket and scarf and self-assurance mark her out. Then, there is him, two meters tall, broad-shouldered and well-dressed, clearly fed and reasonably treated. Not quite standard issue household help, but nevertheless, Mako is comfortable with him. She asks his opinion. He carries the larger shopping bags, but she takes the smaller ones. Trusted. Not treated as a porter, not treated as a vehicle for transporting bags. Given deference. Actually asked for his opinion, rather than treated like security muscle. 

At one point, there is some confusion. Mako thinks they should turn left to reach the next store on the list. Herc believes they should continue on down the current thoroughfare and take a right. They -- 

...

They go, among other places, to a department store carries the silk scarves that Tamsin likes. Herc expects to stop at the sections selling clothes for teenage girls or electronics, but they continue upwards to the expensive boutiques where Mako gives Tamsin's name. The shop keeps, apparently, a registry of which scarves from that line Tamsin has already bought. In fact, the first clerk they see goes to the back and brings out a second clerk, more senior, who not only speaks better English, but regularly waits on Tamsin, who is a good customer. She knows Tamsin's taste and can bring out a tray with some preliminary selections. 

While they are waiting, Mako finds a sweater in the boutique that she would like to try. On coming back, tray in her hands, the sales clerk says that she would be delighted to set Mako up with a dressing room. 

Then, she looks over at Herc, then back at Mako. 

"Miss Mori, does your contractor need to maintain a line of sight?" 

Later, when Herc and Mako are taking a break for cocoa (for her) and coffee (for him), passing back over the intersection where Mako thought they should turn and Herc thought they should continue straight, Mako asks, and Herc tells her that some contractors are required to be able see at least part of their primary client at all times. 

Some are conditioned to be uncomfortable until they can. 

Others get shocks from their collars. 

...

Mako considers the information. 

"But you do not," she says, after a moment. "You are not conditioned that way." 

"No." 

"Did it -- hurt you when we disagreed about which way to get to the store?" 

"No."

Herc was right. Mako was wrong. 

...

Mako has a mug of cocoa between her hands, and there are shopping bags around their feet. One of them has tipped over and is lying half over his left foot. Herc also knows that Mako is working through questions in her mind, methodically, determinedly. Her eyes are on his face, looking, judging, considering what would be acceptable and unacceptable to ask. She is curious, but there are other emotions in play. She wants to be -- Herc thinks the word is _respectful_. When she comes up to something that she wants to ask, but hesitates on whether it would be _respectful_ to ask, her face goes pink. 

Herc breathes out and doesn't know what to say: despite her embarrassment, Mako follows through, picking her words very carefully, looking him fully in the face. 

"Am I likely to do anything this afternoon, Mr. Hansen," she asks, "that would set off your collar?" 

"No," Herc says. 

Mako does not want to cause pain, but she wants to be clear. She is newly aware, and she remembers vague rumors, half-scandalized, half-excited, whispered at school, about a new family contractor seen on a trip home between terms with deep conditioning that reached all the way into the verbal centres. 

"If you lose track of me for a few minutes?" Mako asks. "Or if you are more than a certain distance from me?"

"No," Herc says, quietly, but shaking his head for emphasis. 

...

For a moment, he thinks about telling her that Stacker, her beloved _sensei_ , who has loved and cared for her, who took her in when Mako's surviving family wanted nothing to do with her because they were afraid of Kaiju reprisal -- Herc wants to tell her that Stacker is not not the kind of man who would program those sorts of things into a shock collar, or have it put into Herc with lights and serum and programming. 

Herc thinks about saying the words to her. He believes it to be true; he knows, in fact, that it is true.

Nevertheless, the words stick in his throat.

...

Instead, he changes the topic. Exams. End of term. 

Has Mako gotten any marks back yet? Does she know what she is taking in the spring? 

Mako looks at him, then flushes more deeply than she had at any point before. Cheeks still pink, she respects him enough to pick up the new thread of conversation, but Herc is aware, obscurely, that -- 

... 

Three days later, the morning of Christmas, Herc is in his quarters. His work is done; Stacker is dressed. There is a knock at the door. Surprised, Herc opens it, not sure what he has left undone for Stacker or why Stacker has come to his quarters: he is surprised again when he sees it is Mako. 

Instead of asking for permission to come in, she asks if she might have a moment of his time. 

Herc blinks. He tells her _of course. Come in,_ he says. _What can I do?_

Mako hesitates, then bows. 

Herc is surprised for a third time: he has has never seen her bow to anyone except Stacker and Tamsin, and he is unsure whether he should bow back to her. 

Instead, Mako apologizes. 

...

Later, Herc pieces together what must have happened: that afternoon outside the house, they talked in a way that made her re-consider collars and contractors. What had she thought about them before? What did she think of him before? Something or someone to be accepted because _sensei_ wanted him. Stacker offered her every opportunity to ask questions, had told her that if she questions later, she could ask them then. She could always seek reassurance that she was still important to him. Herc guesses, correctly, that Mako had never taken up the offer. She trusted Stacker. 

Nevertheless, that afternoon, she realized there was more. She had separate, distinct responsibilities of her own, and when Herc changed the subject to what felt easier, Mako listened carefully. 

She has worked out, finally, beyond the ignorance taught by her class of origin and the indifference of the one she is being schooled to, that something was not right between Herc and his son. 

...

Then, Herc guesses, not wanting to press him on something painful, Mako would have asked Stacker privately, and Stacker would have told her truth: Herc can guess how quietly and simply Stacker would have told her, every word appropriate and true. Chuck and his father had a quarrel. Mako had heard it. It had continued, and Chuck and his father were still quarreling. 

Did Mako press him for details that made her realise that Chuck was no longer calling, that Herc was no longer visiting the Academy? 

...

Did she ask Stacker if he knew the cause of the quarrel? Perhaps Stacker had said that he didn't, and he suspected that Herc was not clear, possibly, on why Chuck was so angry. Herc thinks that she must have, and Stacker, possibly, did not know about the package that came back while Mako was sick. 

Returned still wrapped, Christmas gift and carefully written card inside. _Returned to sender at request of recipient._. 

Did she -- 

...

Three days after they go out shopping together, the Christmas, Mako comes to Herc the morning that she and and Stacker are due to leave for a few days at Tamsin's. Herc thinks for a moment that she will ask if he would like to come with them: part of Herc recoils at the idea, but another part, obscure, living somewhere deep inside his body, leaps at it, and there is a twist in his stomach as he realises the second. 

Instead, Mako bows. She says, in quiet words, that she has an apology to make.

...

Instead, in exact language, she explains that shortly before he and Chuck had that terrible fight, there was a night when she had dinner with Stacker. Chuck was supposed to be in his room, but as she was leaving, Mako had realized that Chuck had left his robot project out in the living room. She had suspected that the robot's visual relay had been activated, but she had not been sure. 

A pause. 

Herc, she says, quietly, with delicacy, had still been with _sensei_. 

She pauses, so the meaning can become clear. So that Herc can absorb the meaning. So that Herc can ask her for clarification, if he needs to hear it. 

She owes him that much: when he says nothing, she repeats herself. She is sorry. 

She had thought -- 

...

She thought Chuck knew already. She should have said something when she saw the robot and suspected. It was inexcusable for her not to have done so, in the months that had passed. Mr. Hansen deserved better from her, and she had apologized separately to _sensei_. 

...

Herc feels little at first. Instead, there is a thread of confusion. Why is she apologizing to him? It has been, after all, a long time since anyone has apologized to him. Years. Instead, he bows awkwardly back, which confuses Mako, so she bows again, and he sees her watching him carefully, trying to judge the degree and nature of his feelings, trying to come to the correct decision, but by and large, Herc feels calm. He feels steady. 

She wishes him a Merry Christmas, and Herc wishes her the same. For a moment, he thinks about offering her a hug, because she now looks more upset than when she began. Uncertain. Worried that she has done something additional wrong by coming to tell him, and instead, Herc smiles and tells her that he hopes she gets the present that she wanted from Stacker. 

(He knows that she will, because Stacker had Herc buy it on his behalf.) 

...

"You're a good girl, Mako," Herc says, instead. He smiles, because he means it. "Merry Christmas."

...

 

In fact, in the immediate aftermath, Herc does not feel much. 

After Mako goes, he closes the door. He waits to hear the rush of the airshuttle lifting from the pad, and once it is gone, he finishes changing for to use the gym. On his way across the great room, he sees a package that Mako has left on the dining room table for him: the wrapping paper is silver, the bow is white, and when Herc gets through it, he finds a tiny statue of Sydney Tower, four inches high, so detailed that he can see individual observation decks. It is a beautiful model, and collectible. Herc recognizes it from one of the stores that they visited before the department store. She asked him what he thought of it; Herc told her it was nice. 

Out of the generosity of her heart, then, even before they talked about what his collar did and did not do, out of thankfulness for everything he had done for her, Mako had bought it for him: Herc remembers thinking it was for a business associate of Stacker's. Herc remembers wondering, for a moment, what if the business associate had Sydney already? 

Herc remembers thinking that Ang had collected ones like these, except Ang's hadn't been as nice. 

...

Herc uses the gym. He showers afterwards and has a long soak in the tub, letting his muscles relax. Then, he eats. After that, he puts a channel on the vidscreen and watches one program after another until it is time to eat again for his afternoon strength workout. After the workout, another shower. Another soak. Another meal. The sun sets, and Herc walks through the house, dark and quiet, with Mako's present still on the dining room table when he left it after unwrapping: alone, he walks into his quarters, closes the door, locks it, strips off his shirt and track pants, and lies down in bed. 

He expects to dream. 

...

Herc expects dreams that hurt more because they were once real. 

Herc expects that, in his dreams, he will touch what he can never have again, see what he only see again in photographs or archived footage, if at all. He wants to smell Ang's hair, feel the weight of an infant son in his arms, see his brother's face and the warmth of being _one of the Hansen boys_ What did his mother look like? How many memories does Herc have of his father? In fact, Herc wants to go back to the first memory he ever had of being proud of himself, which came when he was sixteen, almost seventeen, sitting on a bench in a hall and looking down at the new, itching tracker scar that was tangible proof he might be valuable enough to have a place in the world. 

Herc will never have those moments again, and he knows it. Nevertheless, for years, when in his room by himself, they have troubled him. Sleeping at Stacker's feet, they have been lesser, but he nevertheless remembered still dreamed them, in a vaguer, more distant way. 

He knew they were waiting for him in his own bed, even if they disturbed him and kept him from sleeping afterwards. 

...

Instead, Herc wakes, alone in his bed, in a room dark except for the alarm clock and the lock screen of his network terminal. He remembers that he locked himself in. He also thinks he may have been dreaming, but he cannot remember. The feeling is gone, and he aches as if he has been beaten. 

In fact, every breath hurts to take. Belatedly, Herc realizes that he has sat up, and he is already crying. He can feel the tears on his face, and after another moment, he realizes that he is not just crying, but sobbing, loud and shameful, shoulders shaking, and he cannot stop. He has not cried this way in years. He believes, correctly, that he did not cry this way when hungry as a child. He knows he that he has never cried like this as an adult, not after Ang died, or he found out Scott had sold out the Forces or he had been turned out as a result. Not after he signed the contract, not after his first beating from Stacker, or after his first time on the wall, hanging until he was sorry and willing to say it. 

Not even after the first time he came with Stacker, whimpering and twisting, half begging to come and half begging not to. 

Even if he does not have words to describe what he now understands, even if it came to him while asleep, Herc knows that he has lost something he can never have back: nothing in his life can be the way it was. Not even after he finishes his contract or stops living on his knees. Not even after his body belongs to him again. 

It will never go back. 

Ang is dead; Scott was dirty and let his older brother be thrown out of the Forces rather than tell the truth and face consequences. 

His son knows exactly what his father does, and he is angry about it. He is right to be ashamed. 

After all, Herc signed up.

... 

What does he have left? Herc not only signed his name, but put his thumbprint and gave video testimony that he was consenting to the contract of his free will without coercion. He had not been threatened into signing the contract. He understood the agency payment provisions. He read and comprehended the default provisions: Herc has been born and come to adulthood in a society that believes in the absolute right for an individual to contract. What does a person own more than his or her or their own body and life, their time on earth? 

Nevertheless, because Herc has experience of life, part of him recognizes that if he had not signed the contract, his choices would have been limited. It _was_ forced. There was an element of indirect coercion. He had been thrown out of the Forces, and nobody wanted to hire him. If he had not taken Stacker's contract, where would Chuck be? If Herc had managed to somehow stitch together temporary jobs, enough work to somehow pay for food and shelter, what future did Chuck have, except to sell himself to someone someday? 

Every other part of Herc, though, reflects on what he knows: ten years ago, how much pity would he have had for someone in his position? 

He signed. He was a man with experience of life, and he knew what Stacker wanted. Stacker had been very clear, and Herc had gotten disclosure above and beyond the requirements of law. Afterwards, Stacker kept the terms of his bargain and then some, finding a way to extend Jaeger protection to Herc's son without demanding anything additional, as he would have been entitled to do. Stacker trusts him. Stacker treats him more than decently. Stacker -- 

...

Part of Herc feels there was coercion. 

Every other part of Herc, every other thing he has ever heard from any other person, or understood from his social context, every vid broadcast, every news article, every experience he has in life -- 

...

Herc puts years of anger and grief and shame and self-loathing into a single round of crying. He goes past the point when his body has tears. His voice gives, but he goes on sobbing. Eventually, he realizes, with a start, that a great deal of time might have passed. He has no idea how much time has gone. In his panic, he forgets that there is an alarm clock by his bed. In his crying, he might have missed the missed the chime from Stacker, and fear puts strength in his legs. He staggers out of bed. He palms the door open and staggers into the corridor beyond. 

Instead, he finds the house is quiet. Stacker is still away, and Mako's gift sits on the dining room table. The airshuttle pad is empty, and in the great room, looking through the enormous windows, he sees the lights further down the peak, glowing. It is a clear Christmas Eve on the Peak in the greatest, richest city of the Rim. All that crying, all that fear, and nothing has changed. It is still dark outside. Herc went to bed early; he has not been crying that long. 

What does Herc do? Who does he have left? 

...

Mako comes home between terms. 

Mako catches a cold, but gets better. Tamsin has been having increasingly more serious health problems relating from the extended period of time she spent, years back, as a prisoner of the Kaiju. Consequently, Mako and Stacker go to Tamsin’s for Christmas and spend the night. 

Before the start of term, Mako goes back: Stacker returns to work. Then, one Friday afternoon in January, Stacker comes from work early, then takes the airshuttle back out again with Herc kneeling at his feet. 

Stacker's Christmas present to himself was ordering a set of matching thigh and wrist cuffs for Herc from his jeweler. 

....

Herc has been to the jeweler before to get Stacker's new studs for the white-tie event: Stacker is expected, so he is buzzed upstairs, and they pass through security. Instead of staying in the outer room with the cases and the seats and a woman being shown a tray of jade set in platinum, they pass through to the room beyond -- Herc remembers sitting in one of the chairs along the wall, waiting for a clerk to bring out Stacker's new studs, but with a clerk leading Stacker and Herc following three steps behind to Stacker's left, they walk into a corridor with a carpeted floor. 

"This one, please," the clerk says, bowing to Stacker, and they go inside. 

"Take your clothes off," Stacker says, and Herc breathes out, carefully, looking at the walls, looking at the room, everywhere except the jeweler's assistant, even though he has his eyes politely averted. 

Herc undoes the three buttons at the front of his shirt, then pulls his shirt off, over his head. 

Mercifully, while in the airshuttle, Stacker gave the command that meant Herc could obey without words. 

...

On his knees in front Stacker, the jeweler, and the jeweler's assistant, therefore, Herc strips down to his underwear. Then, after a moment when Stacker continues to wait, when the jeweler and the jeweler's assistant continues to wait, Herc ducks his head, swallows hard, and pulls his boxers down, then lifts his knees up. He lays his boxers on top of his folded shirt and trousers, his neatly coiled belt. 

Then, after Herc has brought his eyes back to Stacker's face, Stacker says, "Up."

There is a raised display table and a small, carpeted staircase leading from the floor to it. 

Other clients besides Stacker keep contractors on their knees, and the jeweler does standard fabrication work, has a remarkably good eye for certain kinds of pieces. In fact, she specializes in particular class of customers who want a certain category of goods. 

...

The cuffs come out on a tray lined with red velvet, gleaming sterling silver, padded underneath with black leather. The jeweler shows Stacker how the fitting mechanism works, as well as how the leather can be replaced if Stacker wants to change the color, or if the leather becomes worn and dirty from excessive use. Theoretically, cloth inserts could be made and might be more practical for daily wear, but Stacker had asked for leather. 

The jeweler is more brown-skinned than most people living in the city, but several shades lighter than Stacker. She has straight dark hair, streaked with white, and her accent is a little different: maybe originally from Jakarta Tower, Herc thinks, rather than any of the ones in Hong Kong. 

"Should my assistant put them on him?"

Instead, Stacker looks over. Kneeling naked on the display, Herc makes a small noise of assent in his throat. When the tray is set in front of him, he takes the left thigh cuff first: it is surprisingly heavy. The jeweler talks with Stacker about where he would like to fit it, and Herc adjusts the cuffs accordingly. Up. Down. 

The jeweler's assistant stands to the side, helpful, topping Stacker's tea cup whenever it falls. A young man, Herc realizes, a relation. In his twenties, used to helping in the shop. 

...

The cuffs are beautifully engraved with flowing lines, featuring the Jaeger eagle at the front of each thigh cuff and on the outside of each wrist cuff. Stacker's ident number is on the inside of the left thigh cuff and the left wrist cuff. When Herc has fitted himself, left thigh and right thigh, left wrist and right wrist, moving from left to right in the same order that Stacker likes Herc to dress him with cuff links or tie his shoes, Stacker leaves his chair, comes over to the display, and checks to make sure that the fit is appropriate. He wants them to be snug, but not too snug. The jeweler tells him how he can adjust each of the cuffs to his liking, so that they fit down closer to Herc's knees or further up, or closer to his elbow or right upon the wrist. 

Stacker adjusts the left thigh cuff down a little, fixes the right wrist so that it won't get in the way of Herc rotating his wrists. 

"All right?"

 

Herc flushes, confused at being asked. He knows he is breathing fast, and Stacker sets his hand against Herc's cheek for a count of five: Herc knows that he flushes even harder: beyond Stacker's shoulder, he can see the jeweler sitting calmly at the small table, with her assistant and probably grandson standing behind her chair, helpful and competent. There is a small tray. There are teacups and a tea pot. A small plate of biscuits. 

Stacker slides his hand up and covers Herc's eyes. 

After a long moment, the jeweler clears her throat. She reminds Stacker that one of the options he chose was that upon the appropriate verbal command, the appropriate cuffs would snap together. 

Would Mr. Pentecost like to do the programming here? 

...

Stacker has given it thought beforehand, and he has commands ready: he presses his thumb to the middle of the Jaeger eagle engraved on the right thigh cuff and speaks each command in turn at the chime, so that the cuff system will both recognize his biological signature and learn the verbal triggers that he wants. 

He chooses _hands together_ and _thighs together_ for pulling those cuffs together; he wants _hands to thighs_ for holding Herc that way. If Stacker wants one particular set of cuffs to separate, but for the other set to stay together, he can say _hands apart_ or _thighs apart_. The command for full release is _all apart_. Properly programmed, the cuffs will only respond to his voice or the voice of the person he designates: he steps back and, at the jeweler's suggestion, gives a few trial commands so that he can see the range of the electromagnets. 

Six inches is the range: further apart than that, there is no pull. If Herc has the appropriate cuffs within that distance, though, his body is pulled into place. There is audible snap when the magnets meet. 

"We can make them stronger, if you would like," the jeweler says. 

"No," Stacker says. He is still standing in front of Herc, and his eyes are on Herc, too, kneeling and naked, pupils dilated and breathing fast, his collar matching his piercings matching his new jewelry, with the black leather standing out clearly against the skin of his wrists and thighs, with the sterling silver standing out clearly, in turn, against the black leather. 

...

Since the cuffs are sterling silver, they'll tarnish and will need to be cleaned. Mr. Pentecost certainly has some at home already, but they'll send Stacker home with some sample cleaning solution and cloths, just in case. Stacker rises and thanks the jeweler -- a master of your art, he says, and she smiles and inclines her head. There is genuine warmth on her face. It is always a pleasure to have Mr. Pentecost's business, she tells him. 

"Please take as long as you'd like," she adds. 

She leaves, assistant following behind, and the curtains are drawn firmly closed. 

...

When they are gone, Stacker walks a few feet further away before he gives Herc the command to come to him: Herc does, coming down from the display table, turning down to the side and coming down the stairs to keep from tipping forward. Once back on the floor, he goes to his hands and knees and crawls over the carpeted floor to Stacker, who stands in front of the three-way mirror. 

"Hands down," Stacker says, and Herc lays his hands on his thighs. 

"Hands to thighs," Stacker says, and Herc feels the tug in his forearms and along his thighs. The cuffs click into place, and Stacker hooks a hand around the edge of Herc's collar and drags him the last bit of distance to in front of the three-way mirror. 

...

Stacker puts Herc in front of the mirror. His legs are on either side: Herc is naked except for the collar and the cuffs and his piercings, and he is framed by Stacker, still in his suit from work, the black shoes and navy suit, French cuffs that extend beyond the sleeves, gleaming silver-colored Jaeger eagle cufflinks that Herc put in while dressing Stacker in the morning. Did Stacker know that the cuffs would be ready this afternoon? Stacker caresses Herc's face to let him know that this is not punishment, then takes his hand way so that he can admire them in the mirror: Herc counts to five, and Stacker goes on looking. Herc counts to ten, and Stacker goes on looking. He does not give Herc a command, and Herc counts to twenty. 

Nothing. 

So, quickly, before he can lose his nerve, Herc turns around, awkwardly shuffling because his wrists are still cuffed to this thighs. 

...

Again quickly, before he can think about what he is doing, Herc crouches as low as he can manage. He can, in fact, just manage to press his mouth to Stacker's right shoe. 

Voice slightly muffled, he asks, quietly, for permission to make a request.

Stacker blinks.

...

In the time they have been together, Herc has never asked, unprompted, used words to ask for something. Stacker has given Herc a structure for making requests, and Herc knows how to use it: on the other hand, he has always had to be prompted. Herc will ask for things with his body and sounds and reactions, but words? Without an order, spoken out loud? 

...

Nevertheless, at the jeweler's, Herc asks without prompting, while naked, face turned up, wrists locked to the cuffs on his thighs, the mirror behind showing the length of his back with the unit mark squarely on one shoulder blade, the arm with Ang's name on a scroll underneath a heart, the tracker scar on the other arm, raised and twisted -- he knows his shoulders are as straight as they can be, and he looks Stacker in the eyes. Underneath the leather, Stacker's right foot is still warm from where Herc kissed it and kept pressed his face, breathing out through his mouth, until Stacker gave him permission to ask. 

After being given permission, Herc straightens as much as he can. He turns his face up. 

He asks quietly, but clearly, if _sir_ would please fuck him

...

Ever since Christmas, Herc has understood: he will never again be the man he remembers. 

In fact, in the depths of his grief and loneliness, he comes to believe that he never deserved to be. 

...

Who does Herc have left?


	32. Chapter 32

There are lights above Stacker's shoulders, and they put his face and torso in shadow, particularly from below: Herc can pick out shoulders, outlines, but not much more. In the mirror, Herc saw more clearly. Nevertheless, he stays on his knees, facing Stacker. Nevertheless, his skin prickles. There is something tight, almost painful in his stomach, and Herc knows that his breath is fast and his heart even faster. Fear? Adrenaline. Dread. Herc can't see Stacker's face, but Stacker is looking at him. Stacker is not moving. Stacker --

Slowly, Stacker raises his right hand.

Still on his knees, Herc makes a noise, half fear, half relief, entirely coming out through a closed mouth.

Still, Herc makes sure to keep his teeth away from his lips.

...

After all, Herc expects to be hit in the face. 

Stacker has a heavy hand, but Herc has learned how to take it, and in the heartbeat that follows after realizing Stacker is lifting his right hand, palm flat, fingers out, wrist straight, Herc draws upon training. He makes sure his lips are away from his teeth. He straightens his shoulders. He tilts his face up and keeps it steady for the blow. When Stacker's hand is lifted high enough, Herc knows, from experience, to close his eyes. Closed eyes make it easier to stay still, and historically, Stacker has never objected, even when the rules about tracking are in effect: Herc can almost feel the hand against his cheek. Two strokes, three strokes, heavy enough so that Herc's face goes to the side. When he opens his eyes next, it will be to undo Stacker's belt and get his dick out. They've done it before. 

Alternatively, if Stacker doesn't want him him in front of the mirror, after being hit, Herc expects the hand to come back down and pull him across the floor by his collar and put in place -- Stacker lifts his hand, and Herc straightens, makes ready. Closes his eyes. 

Instead, Stacker lifts his hand, reaches over and passes his hand, palm flat, fingers out, wrist straight, gently over Herc's shoulders. 

...

Eventually, Herc opens his eyes: Stacker is touching Herc in broad strokes over the shoulders and face and the back of his neck. On his knees, with his eyes straight in front, Herc is close to eye-level with Stacker's groin: without thinking or considering, Herc opens his mouth, tongue flat, mouth wet. He turns his eyes up, open and wide, even though he can't see any more of Stacker's face. Mouth still open, he tries to find Stacker's eyes in the shadow. 

The hand that Stacker has on Herc's shoulder tightens; without thinking, Herc moans, mouth open, and the hand tightens hard, enough to hurt, enough that Herc rocks forward on his knees in eagerness and Stacker's hand tightens again and --

...

There are voices outside.

The woman from before, possibly, who had been looking in the display room: she is talking loudly, and a staff member is speaking to her, quietly enough so that the words blur together, but enough for a second, separate voice to be heard. Stacker's hand loosens. He leaves it in place, but turns to look at the door. Until the voices fade, he stays turned.

Then, he lifts his hand from Herc's shoulder.

Then, he touches Herc on the cheek.

"All apart," Stacker says, sounding normal. The cuffs release.

Herc blinks. 

"You can stand," Stacker says, mildly, as if he weren't still more than half-hard in his trousers. 

...

Slowly, Herc pulls on his clothes: the cuffs go into a box the jewelers left in the suite. Stacker finishes a cup of tea poured from before while Herc puts the cuffs into their fitted, velvet-lined spaces. At the door from the shop, there are smiles and nods with staff, then a few more words of conversation. Stacker is thanked for his patronage. Stacker speaks a small amount of the predominant local language used the conduct of business in Jakarta Tower, and that is the origin of family whose branches provide the employees of the jewelers. They are immigrants to Hong Kong Tower, and they are pleased when Stacker uses it what he has. He is appreciative of the work that has gone into the pieces he bought. There are smiles and appreciation. Gratitude. 

Stacker is a good customer. Generous. Loyal with his custom, communicative with his demands.

Herc still rides back kneeling on the airshuttle floor, face pressed against Stacker's knee. 

...

In fact, as they fly home, Stacker works, reading a tablet touches, steadily and gently, the back of Herc's neck. Herc's hands feel cold. His --

From time to time, he looks up and sees the box of cuffs on the seat next next to Stacker.

...

For the rest of the day, in fact, there is something strange in Herc's body: tension he doesn't understand, but feels in every part of his body. He is embarrassed to look at Stacker. He feels awkward when settling at Stacker's feet. His face feels strangely numb without being cold, and his neck feels stiff, resistant, when he is pulled or put into place against Stacker's knee. The awkwardness compounds when Stacker keeps Herc with him for the rest of the day, tucking Herc between his knees in the study while he works for the balance of the afternoon: halfway through the ride back, Herc convinced himself that Stacker would give him the rest of the day off, and he could spend it in his quarters with the lights off and a pillow over his head.

Instead, Herc's knees go numb multiple times, and he is stiff when following Stacker out to the great room for dinner.

Stacker gives him permission to sit on the floor instead of kneel.

...

Stacker makes two plates, identical with respect to contents, but feeds Herc's to him piece by piece under the table. From time to time, Stacker hands his glass down to Herc. Afterwards, Herc asks to use the bathroom: when he comes back, he finds the table cleared, dishes taken to the kitchen. Instead, Stacker has cleaned his hands, and is on the couch, half-reading from the work tablet, half-watching a talk show about politics. Stacker looks up, briefly, then goes back to his tablet.

At a hand signal, Herc lies down on the couch and turns his face into the upholstery.

Afterwards --

...

Afterwards, Stacker turns off the vidscreen and stands, putting a hand on Herc's shoulder to tell him, wordlessly, to stay in place. 

Herc does. 

...

Eventually, Stacker comes back, work tablet put away, but something else in his hands. He shows it to Herc, touching Herc's shoulder so that Herc will take his face from the side of the couch and look: it is the light cane that Stacker keeps with the toys, rather than what he uses for punishment. To reinforce that this is not punishment, Stacker uses hands, not words, to guide Herc to the dining room table. Instead of making Herc lay himself down, Stacker uses his hands to put Herc down on the table, bending him gently at the waist. 

...

He puts the cane down on the table next to Herc's face while undressing Herc below the waist. 

Without being told, Herc keeps his eyes on it. 

...

"Arrange your hands to be comfortable," Stacker says, stepping back. 

"Yes, sir," Herc says and brings his arms underneath him, so that the fingers of each hand grip the opposite forearm. He turns his face to the side. He fixes his eyes on the far wall, just under the vidscreen, just over the back of the couch. He listens to Stacker make sure he has the cane in hand: how hard, how much force, how far back he should stand from Herc to get the strike that he wants. He taps left side, right side, swings down, but stops the cane short of impact. When Herc shifts without meaning to, Stacker stops and lets Herc adjust. 

Stacker tests again. 

Once Herc is settled, once Stacker is sure he has the measure of how to handle the cane, Stacker uses his left hand to touch Herc in the small of his back, where his shirt is hitched up: _be ready_. Action, rather than verbal, so that under house rules, Herc won't have to vocalize with adrenaline and fear and -- with all that running through him. Herc is, in fact, slightly dizzy with how suddenly it came upon him. 

A pause. A breath.

Stacker lays three down, fast and sharp. 

...

"More? You can say no." 

Herc has turned his face so that it is buried against his arms, so it is muffled, just barely intelligble. 

"Please, sir."

...

At three, Stacker asks. 

"Please, sir."

At six, Stacker asks again. 

"Please, sir."

At nine, Stacker pauses after Herc answers with a shaking, half-gasped _please, sir_. 

"You can have six more," Stacker says, and Herc's shoulders tighten with resolve: Stacker didn't give orders about how much sound Herc was to either make or refrain from making, so Herc cried out at six, but kept himself from doing it for seven or eight.

Stacker touches his right hand to the small of Herc's back and doesn't take it away until they're both ready.

...

Nevertheless, when Stacker lifts him from the table after fifteen, Herc's knees are weak. There are tears on his face and shining on the wood of the table. Did the tears come before the last set or before? Despite his best intentions, Herc cried out for most of them. He choked off eleven, but Stacker making sure that thirteen and fourteen and fifteen involved actual screams by lifting the cane high and gripping only a palm's-width from the end and bringing them down, each one lower on Herc's thighs. Gently, Stacker rolls Herc onto his side. He checks Herc's hands and feet for warmth, makes sure his pupils dilate and contract normally. 

"I'm going to the kitchen. I'll be back. You don't need to answer," he says, and comes back with a cloth in hand: he uses it to wipe both Herc's face and the table with the same cloth from the kitchen.

"Can you stand?" Stacker asks.

Herc's breathing is still jagged. His hands are, in fact, trembling. 

"Please, sir," Herc says, and his voice is rough from multiple things.

... 

Stacker understands the words, correctly, to mean that Herc doesn't trust his legs to stand,, so after folding the cloth from the kitchen neatly and putting it back on the table, wet side up, he lifts Herc and props his right shoulder under him, so that Herc can half walk, half be carried. They go to the master bathroom: marble on the walls, anti-fog elements in the mirror. Stacker leans Herc against the wall, then takes a quick lap to make sure the heating system underneath the floor is off. Then, he comes back and puts Herc down on his knees on a kneeling pad, face against the face against the cool marble of the sink. There is an insulated ice bucket with ice packs. Stacker tucks one pack on the back of each of Herc's thighs, then leans him back, so that his ass rests on one side of each ice pack and presses the other against his legs

Herc breathes out, a little shaky, and shifts slightly. 

Without words, Stacker hands down a half-full glass of water. 

Herc drinks quietly. Without him entirely realizing it, there are tears on his face again. 

...

Stacker takes the empty glass away, thinking that he should remember to use a plastic cup: at least something that won't break if dropped. Consequently, he makes sure to put the glass well away on the counter. Then, without bending down, he touches Herc's hair. Then, he touches Herc's face. If Herc comes forward infinitesimally, he can wedge one shoulder against the wall and lean against Stacker's legs. 

Instead, though, Herc frowns. There are tears on his face, and he seems, for a moment, despite not having the obligation to use words, about to say something. 

Instead, he turns his face, wet again with tears, and presses his cheek to the hand of Stackers that held the cane. He touches his mouth, still wet from drinking, to Stacker's fingers. 

Months before --

...

Months before, on a rooftop, Chuck had been angry.

 _You're a liar_.

_You told me you were a security contractor. You said you still thought about Mum._

Desperate, Herc reached for his son. 

Wild with shame and hurt and betrayal, desperate with fear that he had been replaced, Chuck twisted away. He shouted the worst things he could imagine. Herc remembers his own confusion: how had Chuck known that his father had been pierced? How had Chuck been able to draw the connection between the piercings and Stacker? Months later, when Mako explained, rigid with self-discipline and freshly-realized duty, Herc realized that Chuck must have seen him with Stacker. Stacker must have told Herc to take his shirt off. Herc must have done it. 

What else had Chuck seen his father do?

....

In the moment, on the rooftop, Herc had been confused. He still didn't fully understand, so he said something vague about Chuck not understanding. Chuck shouted back: what was there to understand? Herc probably _liked_ having that done to him. Had he _asked_ Stacker for them?

He'd probably _wanted_ them.

Herc recoiled. Chuck saw it and was glad: he made a point of showing it on his face. At least he recognized disgust on his father.

...

Chuck had been thirteen, on the edge of fourteen, a schoolboy. Piercings were strange. Complicated. Sexual, yes, but in a way he did not fully understand. What did men do with the nipples of other men? In ignorance, Chuck could imagine nothing more intimate for two people to do than have sex, and nothing more sexual between men like his father and Stacker Pentecost than oral and anal sex. Consequently, having worked himself up to it, in a particular moment of anger, he shouted: did Pentecost put his dick into his father's ass?

Herc stopped in his tracks: there were so many things he feared more.

Face red with anger, misreading the expression on his father's face, Chuck pointed to the collar on Herc's neck and --

...

One night in spring, Stacker tells him to dress, so Herc does. In the aircar, Stacker sits, and Herc settles in place.

At the entrance hall to the venue, crowded with banquet-goers and large ice sculpture of the eagle-and-star insignia of the Jaegers with bouquets arranged its feet, Herc helps Tamsin out of her fur coat: soft as a dream, pale gray at the tips and white as snow underneath. Herc realizes it is real animal fur -- the night is warm, threatening rain. The air has already started to feel heavy for summer, and Tamsin is the only person in the foyer, man or woman or non-binary, in a coat of any weight, let alone fur. Stacker is talking to a cluster of people, but pauses, just a moment, while passing his muffler and coat to Herc. 

Herc collects Stacker's muffler, loops the coat over his arm, then helps Tamsin out of her fur. 

Herc spends the banquet dozing in the equivalent of the coat room, Stacker's scarf carefully folded in a trouser pocket, Tamsin's fur in his arms. Stacker's coat in his arms.

...

"Wei."

Herc realizes his eyes are closed: There is a hand on his shoulder. The voice isn't Stacker's, and neither is the hand. Herc considers not opening his eyes, but the hand shakes him again. 

"Wei." 

Slowly, Herc opens his eyes. His lashes feel oddly stuck together, and his mouth is dry. He is flushed with heat, probably from Tamsin's fur. Stacker's coat is still in his arms; Stacker's scarf is still in his pocket. The room is also fuller than when he fell asleep; there are groups of people siting at chairs drawn up around tables spread with spare tablecloths. More specifically, though, there is a man standing in front of him. Roughly Herc's age, on the tall side for a local, but still speaking the local dialect. 

Now that Herc is opening his eyes, the man takes his hand away from Herc's shoulder. Herc sees that the man wears a jacket and matching trousers and a collared shirt, open at the throat to show a contractor collar. 

Shifting to smooth English, the man asks, "Can you talk? Or did they -- "

The man taps his throat, and when Herc touches his own throat at roughly the same place, he realizes it's where his vocal chords are.

Herc's voice sounds strange: he realizes that he had been sleeping more deeply than he thought. He had been tired without realizing. Worked up. "No." 

The man considers him for a moment, trying to decide, Herc knows, if Herc's voice is odd enough for it to mean he has been modified, and if so, why Herc might lie about it. 

Finally: "I haven't seen you at one of these before. You want to eat? They brought food."

Now that it's been mentioned, Herc can smell it. He can see them on the far side of the room: a table, two or three silver trays set in hot water baths to keep them warm. A layout of pitchers with water, along with cans of soft drinks. Possibly even alcohol. 

"Thanks. Ate already," Herc says, and his voice sounds less strange with use. 

After a while, the man goes back to his dinner and friends, and after another while, Herc realizes: the contractors in the room are divided into at least three groups. There are the security contractors, drifting in and out with their shifts, grabbing a bite on their feet. A second group stays in place, dressed in suits or analogues. Professionals under contract, here to provide just-in-case services. Most of them wear small Jaeger lapel pins like Stacker's, and there are plates of half-eaten food. 

The third group is smaller, mostly women, almost all young. A remarkably beautiful brown-skinned woman is wearing a dress that looks like it is made of small pieces of gold-colored metal, linked together. In front, it is slit deeply, almost to her navel. It is also slit deeply at the sides up to her hips. The group is playing cards. A young, pale skinned man who is not wearing a shirt checks his makeup in a hand held mirror. The woman next to him tells him it's his turn, and it's tattooed on anyways, so he should _play_ his card before she did it for him. Most of them had not eaten, and --

Herc shivers, checks to make sure he still has everything gathered around him, then leans his cheek back against the flocked wallpaper in the corner. His mouth is dry, but he doesn't want to get up to get a drink: he goes back to sleep. 

...

At the end of the night, one of the event staff -- contractor, wearing a uniform, pleasant and professional, if slightly harried at the rush -- comes back to tell Herc that his client is ready to leave. 

"Any trouble?" Stacker asks, looking carefully at Herc. Herc looks back at Stacker. Then Stacker takes his coat and muffler from Herc in a certain way, with a certain expression and emphasis. 

"No," Herc says and goes, as directed, to help Tamsin with her coat.

There are press at the exit, and Tamsin and Stacker stop for pictures on the steps, looking to the left, then to the right. Afterwards, at another look from Stacker, Herc helps Tamsin down the stairs to the aircar. At first, Herc thinks that Tamsin might have gotten drunk or dosed herself with something, but he realizes there is no liquor on her breath. Her eyes are normal, if bright with pain. She holds his arm hard, and her hands are cold even though she is wearing a fur coat on a warm evening.

...

There are photographs before the banquet; there are photographs during the banquet and after.

In a drawer, closed away by her bed, never brought out, Tamsin keeps a photograph: silver frame, in completely different circumstances. The morning fog burned off underneath sun, so the sky is blue and the water is gray-green. The photograph happens on a boat; in the background is the water-spanning bridge at the base of Frisco Tower, which has been solid Kaiju territory for a dozen years. 

In the photograph, Tamsin is in a casual shirt. She looks proud. Happy. Healthy. Luna Pentecost is leaning against her shoulder and smiling gently. They are holding hands and look like women in love. 

Closest to the camera, Stacker is looking directly in, proud and largely calm, only slightly defiant about wearing a contractor collar.


	33. Chapter 33

Herc remembers: he asked Tendo for the name of someone at a contract agency. Tendo blinked, considered, then reached to pull contacts from his personal device. Plenty of his tech friends sold themselves. It was a good way to make money. Clients liked knowing that you would be loyal. Clients wanted to know that you would to stay through the end of the project. 

...

Herc remembers: when he was fifteen, by chance, he and Scott spent four months at a school better than the others they went to. It ran a special program for promising students; Scott's test scores were good enough that he was, initially, considered for a place. From the letter that Herc saw, it involved extra work. After-school tutoring. Heavier class loads. Special sessions with the counselors. The goal was university, but there were extra costs involved, and Scott wasn't interested in either university or extra work.

Herc remembers, mostly, seeing the seniors who had won a _placement contract_. They were proud. To show their status and hint at what they would be doing after graduating from university, they wore a silver pin in the collar of their school jumper. 

...

Does Herc assume that Tendo's friends wrote code on their knees? No. Does Herc think that the pin-wearing students, bright and ambitious and hardworking, the best students at the best school he ever attended, repaid their university debts by being hand-fed dinner under a table? No. 

There are different kinds of contracts. Herc knows. 

The first time he went into the agency, they skipped over the sexual component of the personal history screening. He was looking for a security contract. They thought that if Herc was selected for a contract, it would be a security one. When they brought him back because he kept appearing on Stacker Pentecost's result list, because Pentecost kept ignoring agency advice and requesting additional information, the review became more -- detailed. A woman sat across from Herc and worked through lists of questions. Was he familiar with the practice of sounding? She would be happy to explain the practice to him, if he was unfamiliar with it. Had he ever been anally penetrated for the purpose of electrostimulation? No? Was he interested or curious about experiencing it? Was he aroused by the possibility? 

In the third year of his contract, Herc takes over running personal errands for both the house and Stacker. 

...

There are, for example, the errands he runs for Stacker in advance of special occasions. 

Stacker might have clothes at his tailor, shoes at his cobbler, and studs at his jeweler. There is an executive assistant at the office who continues to handle scheduling and communications and bills, but Stacker gets into the habit of mentioning small errands when Herc is dressing him in the morning. Herc notices when the lotion that Stacker likes to use runs low: Stacker has a standing account at the small, family-run gentlemen's goods store blends it for him. When the standing floor lamp in Stacker's study begins to flicker, Herc looks for a new bulb, doesn't find one in the house, orders a replacement from the place that usually delivers replacements for consumable household goods, finds that the so-called replacement won't fit into the socket, and spends an afternoon carrying the old, burned-out bulb to four warehouses on a trade-supply level of Kowloon Tower, trying to find a specialist in vintage light fixtures with the right stock. 

They have a few that should match or closely matches to what Stacker had before. Herc rides the airtrain home, cradling three tucked against his body. That night -- 

...

That night, Stacker has a great deal of work, and he is tired of working at his desk. For a change in scenery, he collects his things and moves over to the armchair, ferrying two work tablets and mug of tea first, tablets in one hand, mug in the other. Wordlessly, Herc follows on his knees: just as there is a place for work tablets and the writing stylus and reading glasses and mug of tea and incidentals on the side-table to the right of the armchair, there is a pad on the left, placed to the side of the footrest so that Stacker can look at Herc while he kneels, but so that Herc can rest his face against Stacker without getting in the way of work. 

Stacker goes back to his desk for the stylus and his reading glasses. He sees that Herc is tracking him, as he is supposed to, but there is -- something else. 

After a moment, Stacker sets down the things in his hands. 

He turns on the floor lamp. The light comes on quickly and holds steady, warm and yellow. 

Pleased, Herc closes his eyes. His hands are -- 

...

Stacker's cobbler is on a low floor of Sha Tin Tower: a family affair, cramped storefront, linoleum, brown paper bags of shoes, and the smell of polish and machine grease heavy in the air. Still, Stacker trusts them not only to repair his shoes, handmade and otherwise, but also his other leather goods.

High up on the wall by the front door, there is a household altar to the local God of Wealth at the with a bowl of burned-down incense and a few oranges. There is an old-fashioned, small-format vidscreen on the counter, and the woman at the register looks over her shoulder towards the back of the store, where her husband her father are bent over Stacker's broken satchel bag, arguing in low voices in the local language about some technical aspect of repair. 

"It's going to be a while. You want to wait?"

Herc shrugs. "It's his favorite." 

The shop is too small for a waiting area, so she brings a stool around -- the legs are long, and the woman is not tall, so Herc helps her get it over the counter. It isn't Herc's first time in the store. After a fresh round of arguing breaks out, she sighs and brings him a cup of tea made with hot water from a dispenser by the register, along with a slice of lemon, and a tin of biscuits. 

Outside the door, Herc realizes, students are finishing the school day and walk home. Mostly wearing a local school uniform of a maroon jumper with gray trousers or skirt. Black shoes. Mostly local kids. 

She sees him looking at them. 

"Have some of your own?"

"One," Herc says. "Off at school."

She nods. "We're saving to send our younger one. Expensive," she says, matter-of-factly. Herc is wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a light jacket; neither of them come up far enough to hide his collar, thick and intentionally difficult to hide. Herc expects her to comment, but she doesn't. 

Instead, she props her elbows on the counter and goes back to reading the old-fashioned newspaper under her elbows. Herc watches the vidscreen. Drinks tea. Has a biscuit. Collects the satchel when repaired. Pays by pressing his thumb to the reader because his biometrics are linked with the household account. 

...

Herc is not, as he thinks of it, _unhappy_. From time to time, something reminds him: kids running down a street, still in school jumpers, wild with excitement at being free. Something that Angela would want to buy, and which she would actually buy because she wanted it and was tired of not having things she wanted. A mother and child out together, the mother in a nice-looking coat, the family connection clear on their faces and the way they dealt with each other. Would the son old be enough to be embarrassed by his mother straightening his clothes, smoothing his hair, wetting her thumb to wipe something from his face? 

In those times, Herc feels what he has done. 

Other times, Herc would not necessarily call himself unhappy. 

...

After all, he enjoys his freedom in the city: he has never had either the time or financial ability to travel freely between Towers. Some days, even watching the ground slip away far below the airtrain is a pleasure. His time outside the house is constrained only by when Stacker wants him at home, and Herc finds it surprisingly easy to make friends among the shopkeepers that he sees. He comes by regularly; Stacker's account is always current. Herc smiles and remembers names. 

He eats good food and drinks clean water. His body works well. For the first time since becoming an adult, looking at his bank account is a pleasure. Even when fees for a full semester of Chuck's schooling come out, the first digit no longer changes. Herc -- 

...

One night, Stacker attends an evening event at a restaurant in Central Tower. 

The next afternoon, three hours before dinner service, Herc stops by. 

The restaurant is on one of the highest luxury retail towers; the corridors outside are polished marble, and the front of the restaurant front itself is not marked with a regular sign. Instead, the restaurant has a long strip of bamboo planted in front. 

...

"Here for security check?"

Herc blinks at her. The woman is tall, dressed in a black suit, with her equally black hair pulled back. She looks sophisticated. Polished. Expensive. So does the restaurant, and Herc expects that from time, they might, in fact, host events with a high enough profile that attendees would bring security teams that would need coordination.

"No," Herc says. "Client left an umbrella last night." 

Herc sees her face shift. Not rude, Herc thinks. Just re-assessing and recategorizing what he does. Having done so, she asks the name of the reservation. Herc explains that he doesn't have it: he understands, though, that it was in the Cypress Room. Party of twelve. His client is Stacker Pentecost. The umbrella should be blue with initials in the handle. 

"A moment, please," she says and steps away. 

In addition to not having a sign up front, the restaurant is expensive enough, exclusive enough, that the waiting area is reached through a winding garden: there are no windows, but space in a Tower is precious. Nevertheless, to establish _atmosphere_ , the restaurant set aside enough space to create the illusion of a full-grown bamboo forest transported sixty floors above ground. Tiny silver bells hang on silk threads and blow in an artificial breeze. Holograms of small forest animals slip between the trees. 

Herc bends down and touches something that feels like dirt under his hands. 

...

One morning, midway through spring, Herc wakes with real sunlight on the bed, shining through the techglass window that runs along one side of the room. Stacker is in bed, too, and after a moment to orient himself, after a moment to check the time and mentally confirm that it is morning, that it is, in fact, Saturday, Herc slides down between the sheets. Stacker is turned on his side, away from Herc and towards the window. 

Carefully, Herc kisses the small of Stacker's back, the skin warm and just above the waistband of Stacker's track pants. 

Stacker sighs, and without opening his eyes, turns over towards Herc. 

...

After three years, when sucking Stacker off in bed, Herc knows his work: he uses his only his mouth to start. He recognizes the way Stacker's breathing shifts when Herc has done something nice. He understands when the the touch on the back of his neck means encouragement, and when it is a suggestion to move on. 

Does Stacker want something slow and careful? Usually, yes, when Herc is blowing him on a weekend morning. He wants to wake up slow and warm and comfortable, enjoying the good things in life. Occasionally, he wants something more: Herc knows to watch for tension in Stacker's thighs, the small change in pace when Stacker wants to wake fucking his mouth. As long as neither happens, once Stacker is hard, Herc makes sure his hands are warm, then puts his hands on the inside of Stacker's thighs to ask if Stacker would like hands cupping his balls and pressing into his perineum. If Herc's hands are cold, he warms them on his own sides and stomach before touching Stacker. 

The small sound Herc makes when he touches his own bare skin: the small pause if Herc brings his hands to Stacker when they are still too cold. 

The sigh of pleasure and the warm, strong hands stroking his face and shoulders and hair if Herc judged right. 

...

Stacker puts a hand in Herc's hair. He puts the other on the back of Herc's neck, above the collar. 

Afterwards, Herc comes up on his elbows. His mouth is open, but he breathes through his nose. His mouth and chin are wet. Sunlight is halfway across the foot of the bed. Eventually, Herc makes a noise in his throat, quiet but desperate. Drowsy, Stacker puts his fingers around Herc's collar and pulls Herc towards him, but Herc digs in with his elbows. Stacker pulls again. Herc leans back. Eventually, Stacker opens his eyes. 

Sunlight is halfway across the foot of the bed. The walls are bright, and Herc --

...

"My little sister is in," Michael says.

"How much longer?"

"Eight."

"What's she do? 

Michael lifts one arm, forearm facing out, wrist turned inside, shoulders square. The arm is too high, and his feet probably aren't right, but it isn't a bad imitation by a civilian. 

"That's a hard living," Herc says, and means it: twelve years into a term, still a front-line riot squaddie. 

Herc is still at the restaurant: the manager was tied up, so they asked him to wait at the bar. During dinner service, Herc guesses the lights are turned low for atmosphere and to preserve the illusion: in the daytime, there is a cleaning crew vacuuming under an enormous gold chandelier. The manager is in the office, finalizing some details on a very important future reservation, and the umbrella tucked in her office. Herc guesses the man in front of him is not usually a bartender, but was sent out to pour him a drink and keep him happy while waiting. He would, in honesty, have been happy to sit and look at things while he waited. The bar is a single sheet of beautiful white marble, striped through in gray waves that look like the ink-wash paintings of mountains that Stacker likes. The walls are covered in a deep blue wallpaper with gold designs that look, to Herc's eye, like bamboo leaves in the grove outside. 

He likes listening to the cleaning crew talk to each other in the local dialect -- he can pick up words here and there. 

_sing kay say_

That's Thursday. 

_lou ban leung_

_Lou ban_ means boss. Herc isn't sure what the _leung_ means. 

Then: 

"We were born and raised outside Lantau Tower," Michael says from the other side of the bar. "They sent her to the Slums outside Frisco Tower last year. During the food riots, she pulled a thirty-six on stims and missed calling home for her kid's first birthday -- didn't even remember until she came out. Partially because she got knocked on the head."

"Partially because of the stims?"

Michael nods. "Ex-Forces?"

Herc shrugs, and after a moment, Michael follows with, "You got a kid?" 

"Fourteen this year. Off at school." 

After another moment, as if just thinking of it, Michaelsays, "You allowed to drink with -- " He points at the collar, then at the largely untouched third-shelf Scotch with two ice cubes. 

"Not that kind of contract," Herc says. 

Then, in a pause in the vacuuming, in a break in the cleaning crew, Herc hears the artificial breeze blow real silver bells in a bamboo forest growing in dirt that feels real -- Herc puts the glass down. 

"Didn't make it to my twenty."

He is surprised when Michael looks up from wiping the counter and says, "Good for you."

He looks angry. He sounds angry. 

...

On the way out of the restaurant, umbrella tucked under his arm, Herc stops in the bamboo forest: trees. Tiny silver bells. Holographic animals. The dirt still feels real, and so does the leaf that Herc takes between thumb and forefinger: he bends the tip until it breaks, and he feels sap between his fingers. The forest seems to hang, in darkness, stretching out forever, rustling in the twilight, but Herc knows it has to be an illusion: the restaurant is fancy, but doesn't have an outside window. It traded extra interior space for windows. It is making the best of its position. 

Even though the dining room and bar are lit for work on the other side, this space is dim. Using his feet, Herc follows the floor to a wall. 

They are, in fact, hung with black cloth to soak light and give the impression of darkness. Vents have been carefully tucked at various heights, away from light sources, in order to provide the breezes that lift the leaves and ring the bells. Herc presses his fingers to the vents and realizes the air they blow is significantly cooler than air temperature. Wetter, too, to create the sense of a living forest. 

Every last detail, attentively and lovingly and carefully and utterly and completely artifici -- 

...

Stacker's bedroom is, on sunny mornings, filled with light. 

Without words, Herc slides down under the sheets. After Stacker takes his hands away and settles back, happy, drowsy with contentment, Herc comes up on his elbows. His mouth is open, but he breathes through his nose. His mouth and chin are wet. Sunlight is halfway across the foot of the bed, and Stacker keeps his eyes closed. Eventually, Herc makes a noise in his throat, quiet, but desperate. A little urgent. Uninclined to open his eyes, Stacker puts his fingers around Herc's collar and pulls Herc towards him, but Herc digs in with his elbows. Stacker pulls again, and Herc leans back. 

Surprised, Stacker opens his eyes. 

Herc is on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Sunlight is on his hair, grown a little long and curly. It gleams on the metal around his neck and in his nipples. There is stubble on his cheeks. 

Also: his chin is wet. Sloppy. Herc has, in fact, all this time kept his mouth open. Without words, Herc asks Stacker to look at him. 

Without specific instruction in word or gesture, or even clear expectation, Herc kept from swallowing. 

With sunlight on the bed and touching him at the face and chest and nipples, with Stacker's hand curled over the back of his collar, Herc shows Stacker, as best as he can, through the mess that Stacker first made of him, which Herc added while holding himself on display, mouth open, back arched, drooling -- Herc shows Stacker the come left on his tongue.

...

Has Herc been trained? 

Yes. 

Does he know the consequences of disobedience? 

Yes. 

Are his responses artificial?

Stacker closes Herc's mouth for him: Herc closes his eyes and swallows gratefully. Stacker rolls Herc onto his back and Herc opens his eyes and breathes out and holds still and tries to steady his heart. Stacker uses his left hand to pull his track pants back up. With his right, gathers Herc's wrists together and pulls them over his head. Herc is wearing his cuffs, top and bottom. 

_Wrists together,_ Stacker says, and Herc's wrists lock together. 

Then: _Wrists to headboard_. Stacker put in a strip of the appropriate metal the length of the headboard. The cuffs are strong enough to hold through wood. After the click, Stacker pauses, hand on Herc's hip, so Herc tugs, once, with his arms to show Stacker that he is secure. 

"Get comfortable."

"Yes, sir." 

Herc shifts his shoulders, lifts his hips, then sets them back down. After that, he is still, but instead of reaching over to the drawer, Stacker starts to run the palms of his right down Herc's body. Herc squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in, then out, then back again. Stacker uses slow strokes. Broad strokes. Easy strokes. He shifts to lie half on Herc, half supporting his own weight, and he bends in close, first so that Herc can feel Stacker's breath on his skin: then, with Herc on his back, hands cuffed over his head, Stacker turns Herc's face and kisses him on the mouth. Herc's mouth and chin are wet with a mix of his own spit and Stacker's come: Stacker sucks it from Herc's skin, then runs his hot, slightly rough tongue over the places and makes them wet again. 

When Stacker pulls away and opens the drawer in the bedside nightstand, Herc shivers and whimpers and tries to keep his eyes open. 

How much is fear? How much is anticipation? 

Herc is half-hard from being touched and stroked and restrained and kissed and sucking Stacker's dick and holding Stacker's come. 

...

Herc remembers learning to breathe on command: kneeling by the side of the bed, Stacker's palm covering his eyes, then his nose, then his mouth. 

_In_

On his side in bed, Stacker's front against his back, Stacker's hand low on his stomach. Herc tries not to pull away from contact. 

_Out_. 

Herc remembers learning to breathe on command: first, verbal commands. Then, nonverbal commands. 

Then, coordinating his breathing with tightening around something in his ass. 

...

There is metal around Herc's neck and his wrists. There is metal in his nipples. There is -- 

...

From the bedside drawer, Stacker takes silicone lubricant and an anal toy, metal, curved with a ball on either end, long enough to hang off the sides of Stacker's palm when he showed it to Herc. Heavy enough to have real weight. Stacker warms it in his hands to take the chill off of the metal. He warms the lubricant, too, and uses plenty of it: after three years, Herc's body opens easily. The toy is familiar; they have used it before, and Herc can take the smaller end with relatively little preparation. Further, Stacker only puts the first inches into him, then sits down on the bed next to Herc. 

"In," Stacker says, resting his lube-slick hand on Herc's stomach, just above the hip.

"Out." 

Stacker strokes Herc's hip to encourage him to breathe out and relax around the cold, cold metal. 

"In." 

"Out," Stacker says. 

Herc's eyes are closed, so he feels, rather than sees, Stacker lie down on the bed and turn onto his side, so that his stomach is against Herc's side, so that his breath is warm against the side of Herc's face. 

"All right?" 

In fact, Herc can feel the warmth of Stacker's body along his right side: bare skin above the waist, then the track pants. The dip of the bed around both their bodies. 

Herc's hands are still cuffed above his head. He breathes in, then out, carefully. He doesn't open his eyes. 

"All right," Herc says, and he knows his voice is uneven. 

After a moment where Stacker checks Herc's pulse and the circulation in Herc's hands, where Stacker shifts a pillow to lie more comfortably on his side and touches Herc's neck to see if there is any strain -- Stacker reaches over Herc's stomach, around Herc's dick, to make sure the metal prostate toy is still in place. 

Then: 

"In," Stacker says. 

Herc -- 

...

It takes time. Patience. Stacker keeps his right hand largely between Herc's legs, making sure that the toy stays in place. From time to time, he touches Herc's dick: lightly, mostly with his fingertips, stroking the corona or the underside of the shaft. At one point, he closes his hand around Herc's dick. Herc makes a noise in his throat and presses himself, as much as he can, against Stacker's palm. 

At the right time, Stacker says _all apart_ , and Herc's wrists fall away from the headboard.

...

They have been moving slowly, deliberately. With his hands free, Herc moves quickly: he gets his elbows underneath him and props himself up on the bed. Then, he starts to rock back and forth. The movement is small, but the effect makes breath leave Herc's body. Stacker shifts, too, turning onto his side. 

Because Stacker is, for a moment, not quite touching him directly, Herc opens his eyes. Stacker's breath is warm against his ear: Stacker's weight presses the bed next to him. 

Herc looks down the length of his body and sees what Stacker sees. 

Collar and cuffs and nipple piercings, the line of his stomach, sunlight over his ankles, his -- 

...

Herc matches at collar and cuffs and nipples: Stacker initially disliked the agency collar, but subsequently made the best of inconvenience by having the base of the collar loosened enough for him to put his fingers around and use it half as a leash, half as a handle. Light pressure widely distributed over the base of a throat used to it, exerted on a body trained not to resist or put its weight against a vulnerable point: relatively low risk. 

Matching nipple piercings for aesthetics and pleasure. 

Matching cuffs for looks and convenience. 

The anal toy is a favorite and matches, too, a handspan and more of heavy, curved stainless steel. A little less than half is inside Herc, and he can see the rest curving out between his legs, ending in a wide ball. Herc can take the smaller end with relatively little preparation, but knows how long it takes, even now, for him to loosen around the bigger end enough for him to fuck himself on it and keep his -- 

Keep an -- 

They have been working at, but have not yet achieved, Herc coming from having only his prostate stimulated. 

...

Herc sees the line of his stomach, the sunlight over his ankles, the metal over him at neck and wrists and nipples. 

Most of all, though, he sees his dick, harder than hard, and dark, dark red. The tip is wet. There are, in addition, two wet spots on his stomach from where the precome has dripped. One is slightly larger than the other. One is slightly further up his body than the other. They are still wet enough to catch light from the bedside window. Herc badly wants to touch his dick, can taste how bad he wants to come in the back of his throat. At the same time, he knows, from prior experience, that he'll need to ask: they have done this before. 

Can he get the words out? Is he likely to get permission if he does? 

...

From a great distance, Herc is aware of choking down how badly he wants to touch his dick and come. His hands are in fists. He is breathing fast. The light from the window is above his ankles, creeping up his calves. How far will it get on his legs? There is sweat on his chest and behind his knees. The world has narrowed down to fucking himself on the metal in his ass, while keeping his hands away from his dick. Herc makes a noise and hears it with someone else's ears: feels Stacker shift on the bed with someone else's skin. 

Carefully, Stacker brings his right hand to the tip of Herc's dick, where there is a drop of pre-come, and touches the tip of his index finger to the pre-come. Then, he pulls his hand away. The pre-come draws out into a line that gleams in the sunlight, that holds straight for a moment, then bends in the middle and breaks. 

Stacker wipes his finger on Herc's stomach, and at the touch of hand to stomach, at the feeling of Stacker leaning close to do that -- 

Herc makes a choked noise and, without permission, helplessly, face twisted away, comes all over his own stomach and Stacker's hand. 

...

Months before, Herc had been on a rooftop with his son. 

_You're a liar_ , Chuck said. 

_You told me you had a security contract. You said you still thought about Mum._

Herc reached for Chuck, and Chuck twisted away. He shouted about his father having piercings. Had his father asked for holes in his tits? Herc flushed and said that Chuck didn't understand. Upset and angry and ashamed and frightened, Chuck asked what was there to understand. 

...

Intent on hurting his father, Chuck shouted about what two men like his father and Stacker might do together. Did his father like doing those things with Stacker? 

Then, Chuck pointed to the collar on Herc's neck and said: 

_What about that? You_ like _wearing it, don't you?_

...

Herc is running an errand for Stacker: the same department store Herc had gone to with Mako before Christmas. The end of term was coming, and Mako had done exceptionally well. Stacker was planning on giving her a present; Tamsin thought it was a good idea and wanted to give her something, too. Herc went to the bookstore level to pick up Tamsin's order: a half-dozen volumes of beautifully illustrated Japanese-language stories, printed in real ink on pulp made from a mix of cotton and real trees. 

He was at the counter, paying with the household account, when he heard a clatter. He looked. So did the sales clerk. 

A young man was on his knees, picking up a pile of books that he dropped. Black hair. Neatly dressed. Local from the looks of it. The side of his face was pink from having being hit and hit hard: the slap led to the dropping of the books. 

"Snivel," his client said, "and you'll get the collar in the car. Hurry up." 

Herc winces. The clerk's face, over her own shock collar, stays blank.

...

In three years -- 

...

In three years, Stacker has never used the shock function on Herc. The loose fit makes it a poor choice: Stacker also has other options. 

Herc remembers his sexual screening at the agency. Had he ever been anally penetrated for the purpose of electrostimulation? No? Was he interested or curious about experiencing it? 

...

On his back, when Stacker touches him on the stomach, Herc comes without permission. In fact, he comes without even asking: he isn't quite there with being able to come only from prostate stimulation, but he has come close, and he has history with this particular toy. When Stacker touched him on the stomach, Herc tensed. When Herc tensed, his body drew the toy hard against his prostate, and his orgasm feels like it goes -- for a long time. His eyes are tightly, tightly shut for most of it. His body clenches. Herc tries to stop halfway through, but ends up making desperate noises in his throat with his hands in fists. 

Afterwards, Stacker takes the toy from between Herc's legs and goes to the bathroom. Herc sees the come on his own stomach, on Stacker's hand up to the wrist in a few places, with one long stripe halfway up the forearm. It looks particularly white and thick against Stacker's skin. 

Herc hears the water come on, then coming off: Stacker rinsing the toy off, then washing his hands. Then washing the toy and setting it to dry on a towel. Then drying his hands. 

Then -- 

...

Herc listens for footsteps back in the bedroom. If Stacker is going to beat him for a punishment cane, he needs to pass through the bedroom to his study, where he hangs them on the wall. Or is Stacker going to hang him from the wall for coming all over him without even asking? Herc's shoulders cramp, and fear cuts through his post-orgasm haze. It's been three years. Stacker could take the position that Herc should know better. The punishment cuffs are in the toy wardrobe in the bedroom. Herc tries to remember whether Stacker's dick was hard when he went to the bathroom. If he still wants Herc to suck his dick again, would he have Herc do it, then put him on the wall? Herc feels, without quite being able to explain why, that the answer would be _no_. 

On the other hand, if Herc hears Stacker come part of the way back into the room, but stop in front of the -- 

The water comes back on. 

The water turns off. 

Herc is still on his back in the bed, afraid to move. Sunlight is on his body: Stacker does not stop halfway across the room. 

Stacker holds out a glass of water from the bathroom. 

Herc sits up. 

Stacker gets one of his undershirts from the laundry bin and wipes the come from Herc's stomach. He takes the dirty shirt back to the laundry bin. 

...

When Stacker comes back to bed, Herc has finished the water and put the glass on the bedside table. Stacker sits down on the edge of the bed, and Herc turns over. On his stomach, he pulls himself across the bed and lays his head in Stacker's lap. 

Stacker puts his right hand on the back of Herc's neck. He puts his left arm over Herc and holds him across the shoulders. 

Sunlight is on them both. 

....

Years before, Tamsin and Luna met while working on the next generation of Jaeger transports.


	34. Chapter 34

Years before, for their first public outing as client and contractor, Stacker takes Herc to a dinner party in another Tower. It goes poorly. 

After all, Herc is new to his contract. Simultaneously, Stacker has too much confidence in what he has been able to accomplish in fourteen weeks: he has, in fact, less in control than he believes. Standing behind Stacker's chair at the dinner table, Herc sees security personnel, men and women doing work that he still feels capable of doing. He is reminded of how much pride, how much self-respect and confidence and worth, he used to take in work like that. Does he still deserve any of it? After the things he has willingly done? 

Deeply upset, filled with shame and fear and grief and regret, Herc accidentally steps into a waiter carrying soup. 

Stacker apologizes to the person he had been speaking to. 

Stacker puts aside his napkin. 

Stacker rises from the table, and takes Herc aside to make sure he has not been burned. 

...

They are crowded in a small, residential bathroom together: wallpaper, light over the sink, a towel hanging from a round circle fixed to the wall, a shelf decorative items. The door is open, and since the bathroom is towards the back of the house, rather than the main guest bathroom by the formal dining room, caterers pass in the hallway outside. They can both hear the clatter of pots and pans from the catering kitchen: smell the steam, see, out of the corner of their eyes, caterers passing to and from the service kitchen, except that Herc is naked to the waist and flushed with shame and fear and grief and regret. 

Stacker is in suit jacket and trousers and shirt and tie and breathing hard because he is trying to keep his temper. He thinks through the table of faces back in that room, heads going up and down the table with ears pricked. Excited. The low murmur, the faces eager to see a new boy embarrass himself. Who does Tamsin Sevier's _sidekick_ think he is, coming to dinner with a personal contractor? 

For a moment, Stacker considers whether the correct move would have been to let Herc stand there, potential burns be damned, ignore everything and let the caterers mop around everyone's feet. His first instinct, though, had been to get Herc out of there and make sure he was not hurt: carried out immediately, without thinking. Was it the right thing to do? Stacker forces himself to breathe out and think, slowly, clearly, rationally. 

After a moment, he decides that his reaction had been correct. He has an obligation to Herc. He has a duty in that respect. In fact, a significant part of the blame lies on him, rather than Herc: he misjudged, and he thought that Herc had let go of more of his shame about being sexual services contractor. Further, he should have remembered that the room would be cool at best, actively hostile more likely. Tamsin wasn't attending. Two of the people down towards the end were in Cole's office: Stacker had been invited to prove that he did not belong, and he had taken the bait, then brought his contractor into it. He needed to talk to Tamsin in the morning and make sure she was briefed and prepared. 

In the near term, though, what should he do? 

Going home early would be an enormous loss of face. 

Leaving Herc outside, or sending him back to the aircar, would be a lesser loss of face, but still add to the night's bill. 

Stacker looks at Herc's face, flushed with emotion, but set in expression. Herc's eyes are fastened on the second button of Stacker's shirt. 

Showing vulnerability or weakness would be unacceptable. 

...

Herc takes down his trousers and underwear, and Stacker spanks him barehanded, ass up, face pushed into the sink, until Herc is sweating and gasping. The door is open, and there is a busy hallway outside. Stacker makes a point of not looking to see whether anyone sees or hears or stops to watch: by the end, his hand is numb to the elbow, and he is also out of breath. 

At the same time, he is more in control of his feelings. He can touch Herc without feeling anger; he can look at himself in the mirror without wanting to turn away. Once Stacker has his breath back, once he has shaken a little of the numbness out of his arm, they walk down the hall. Around the corner, around another corner, then down another hallway to the formal dining room. They go back to the dining room, Herc following Stacker, head down, shirt off. At table, Herc goes to his knees because he has lost the right to stand: instead, Herc spends the rest of the dinner, kneeling next to Stacker, head just clearing the tablecloth, low and comparatively close to the floor, yet simultaneously on display in front of twenty-six dinner guests and a half-hundred waiters and security personnel. 

Herc is stiff; his eyes are more than wet. Stacker looks calm and steady, but Herc has clearly freshly physically punished. 

How far is Stacker willing to go? The room ripples with curiosity. 

There is a comment about whether Herc will be part of the after-dinner entertainment. There is another comment about whether Herc is already providing entertainment: no, a third person says, Pentecost isn't getting his dick sucked yet, as far as he can tell. Even though his contractor is already down there. 

_Forget dessert. Pentecost, put your boy on the table._

The woman on the other side of Herc starts to touch him. She is curious about the tattoos on Herc's back: with shirt and undershirt off, they are clearly visible. Has she ever seen a Forces tattoo in person before? She digs her fingers into that, hard enough to leave red marks, then lifts her hand up and traces Angela's name with her fingernails, slow, doing it for the feel of it at first, then because she likes seeing how how hard Pentecost's contractor has to hold himself. The name means something to him, doesn't it? What will happen if she pinches him right on top of the tattoo? Did people feel pain in places where they had tattoos? 

Herc keeps his hands behind his back, but makes a noise in his throat, a little pain, but mostly fear. Without breaking from the conversation he is having with one of the few people in the room decent enough to talk to him about something else, Stacker pulls Herc away from the woman touching him and towards him. 

In fact, Stacker eats the rest of the meal one-handed, hand firmly over the back of Herc's neck, grip tightening whenever someone makes a comment about Herc. 

That night, after they get home -- 

...

That night, Herc goes to Stacker's door without being asked. The aircar lands, and Stacker is silent: so is Herc. He goes back to his room, and puts on a shirt. He changes out of his trousers into pajama bottoms, and walks, barefoot, to the door of Stacker's room. He knocks. 

Stacker opens the door. 

Herc goes to his knees. 

...

In the morning, Stacker jerks off and catches his come in his palm, then holds it out to Herc, who has been kneeling next to his bed all night. Still kneeling, hands behind his back, after hesitation, Herc uses his mouth to clean Stacker's hand, licking the palm in broad strokes and sucking Stacker's fingers clean. 

...

Years later, bedroom again, morning again: Herc in bed. He is naked. Stacker isn't. 

Stacker touches Herc on the hip, and Herc turns onto his stomach. When Stacker leans over to the bedside stand for lubricant, Herc shifts out of the way. Stacker rolls back over, lube in hand. Still half-asleep, Herc starts to push himself onto his elbows and knees, but Stacker touches him between the shoulderblades, so Herc lies back down. Closes his eyes. Tries to stay loose and easy around two fingers, then three, then three held apart. In fact, Herc drifts a little while being finger-fucked. How many times has it happened to him during the course of his contract? Warm and reasonably comfortable, with a vague idea of pleasing Stacker, Herc folds his hands over the back of his neck, just above his collar, lacing his fingers together while pressing his face into the pillow. 

On the first day of his contract, Herc expected to be fucked five minutes after getting through the door: put down on the couch and told to keep his noises to himself. 

...

"Bloodwork looks good. Cholesterol, blood pressure, hormones, all good." 

Herc is at the medical clinic for the agency. He is due for a booster shot on his vaccines, and the agency suggests he is overdue for a physical index. Does he have another two hours to spend with them? Instead of the soft-faced, tattooed man that Herc remembers from his intake, Doctor Lee is a middle-aged, no-nonsense local woman with streaks of white in her dark hair. Light brown skin, brown eyes, jade pendant on a small gold chain hanging outside her shirt, but underneath her white lab coat. 

"In some ways, you're in better shape than you were." Doctor Lee points out, on the screen, where his body fat percentages have gone down. With a stylus, she taps on the screen to bring up the table showing cholesterol, blood pressure, VO2, other indicators of cardiovascular performance. 

The screen also has an outline of his body, updated with the scan results from half an hour before.  
Old items are shown in gray: his old unit mark, the _Angela_ on a scroll, the scar from his Forces tracker, the line over his sternum from an electroblade a decade before, a knot of tissue on his hip from a decade and a half before. New, sufficiently permanent changes are in yellow.  
The piercings are shown in green. There is a note saying that they were pre-registered with the agency, so the doctor passes over them smoothly except to ask Herc: did they heal cleanly? Any infection or loss of sensation that he wants to report for his file? 

Herc is dressed again, shirt and trousers and belt. Unless Stacker is actively handling them, he barely thinks about -- 

...

"How do your legs feel -- knees? Any back problems?"

"All right," Herc says.

"Stiff?"

"Sometimes. Knees mostly. Lower back." 

They work through a few range-of-motion tests with his knees, so that she can confirm what the scan showed. 

"How much time do you spend on them a day?" 

"Four, five hours. Sometimes more."

"Is that something you can negotiate?"

"No." 

She looks at him, eyes steady, her right hand still on his left kneecap, her left hand on his left ankle from when she'd been flexing his knee. Herc looks back at her. 

"There are ways to approach it with your client. Does he let you ice them?"

Herc hears what she says, but doesn't say anything further, and the expression on his face -- she lets go and pushes the stool back to give him space. There are words to say about preventative measures, but the doctor senses the edge of what Herc is willing to hear. 

"Last thing I'll say about it," she says, finally, carefully, eyes on him "If you're spending that much time on your knees, I'm surprised your client didn't want your knees replaced at the start. We can do it mid-contract, but there will be rehab. Down time. Clients can be fine with the cost of the surgery itself, then find out how long it will take to recover full function, or feel there is a difference in performance before and after. It can be hard on contractors when that happens." 

...

Later in the appointment, the doctor tells him, gently but plainly, that he doesn't need any treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases or infections. As far as the panel can tell, he hasn't picked up anything on the contract, but they'll give him the latest boosters. It should cover most of what could come his way. 

...

The doctor doesn't -- 

...

After the appointment, Herc picks up a pair of Stacker's dress shoes from his cobbler, then gets lunch at one of the stands on the lower levels of Sha Tin Tower: sets the paper-wrapped shoes between his feet and eats thick rice noodles with soy sauce and ground-up shrimp. He has had it before from this stand; the cobbler recommended it as the best of the _dai pai dong_ nearby. Herc has started trying some of them -- it's a change from the prepared meals delivered to the house, and since the vendor only speaks the local dialect, Herc is mostly limited to pointing and paying. He doesn't feel too out of place, though. Other customers, local, just point and pay, too. 

Herc finishes his food, then buys a bottled drink, then walks, shoes under his arm, looking in shop windows, watching people come in and out of stores, run errands, live their lives. There is a small recreational area on the level planted with trees and grass. He sits for a while, watching old women play a local game that involves ceramic tiles. 

Eventually, his collar makes a small, discreet noise, and Herc checks his watch: Stacker has told the household system what time he expects to get home. Herc does a quick calculation, then gives himself fifteen minutes more to sit in the park before taking the lifts to the airtrain level. He has enough time; he -- 

Herc ignores the strange numb feeling that has been filling his chest and hands and body all afternoon.

...

Herc shows up to the agency for his first day under contract, expecting to be fucked in the ass as part of immediate hard use: put down roughly and expected to keep his noises to himself. 

Instead, three years in: warm bed, warm hands, plenty of lubricant and no pain, almost an afterthought to everything else they have done together. In fact, just before Stacker puts his dick in, Herc folds his hands over the back of his neck, above his collar. He is face-down in a pillow, and consequently feels, as much as hears Stacker's sigh of pleasure -- partially from physical enjoyment of Herc's body, but partially, too, from deep satisfaction at how Herc is clearly and plainly, without reservation, offering himself.

...

Herc kneels by a table and hears, with a stranger's hand on him: _Forget dessert. Pentecost, put your boy on the table._

In late spring, Stacker has friends over for dinner. 

...

Tamsin. A man named Duc Jessop, a woman named Kaori, a few others. Two friends from Vladivostok Tower, in whose primary honor the gathering is being held. Stacker's office coordinates some of the advance details, like the menu and invitations and security clearances, but Herc handles logistics on the day of the dinner. First, the cleaners, then delivery of the floral centerpiece: then caterers. The party is small enough, informal enough, that Stacker is serving his guests personally. Nevertheless, the caterers bring the trays, set the oven, take the covers off the cold appetizers, lay out the specialty silverware and linen and liquor. Since the caterers are leaving before Stacker comes back, Herc asks them to walk through everything that needs to be done, just in case there are questions. He asks them to leave a contact number, too. 

Then -- 

"All right?"

Herc manages, "Yes, sir." 

Stacker strokes Herc's face with his hands, then steps away. 

...

There is the floral centerpiece for the table. 

For the great room, there is Herc, blindfolded, kneeling quietly on a stand with his hands behind him using soft, comfortable rope, not too tight, in a double column tie over his forearms. Stacker moved the coffee table to the side to make room, and Herc is barefoot, freshly showered and shaved, but wearing a surprisingly casual cream-colored long-sleeved shirt and comfortable, elastic-waisted track pants. Comfortable clothes. Clothes that he has had for a long time because keeping his balance on a stand, even a stable, well-balanced one wider than his shoulders, is difficult without visual references. 

Stacker's friends arrive, first Duc, then Tamsin, then the guests of honor. Stacker knows all of them, is friendly and familiar with them. They are all friendly and familiar with each other, too, and there has been mist coming down the peak, so Stacker collects umbrellas, a light jacket from Tamsin. He pours drinks, brings out the appetizers, tells Duc where to find the guest bathroom. There will be champagne. 

"Don't worry, Aleksis," Stacker adds. "We have vodka."

An old joke. Laughter. 

...

"May I?" Duc asks. 

Stacker puts his drink down. 

Herc's shirt is thin enough so that shapes are visible through the fabric, but not color or detail. Stacker comes to stand behind Herc, fingertips of his right hand cold from holding his drink. He steadies Herc, then reaches down and smoothly, easily, draws Herc's shirt up, over his stomach, past his collar bones. Herc is wearing both presentation hoops and the nipple weights: not the heaviest of the set, but enough so that Herc knows that by the end of the night, even without much else, the weight alone will leave his nipples tender and sore and puffy for days. 

"Jaeger blue," Duc says, admiringly. 

"They match his eyes."

Stacker touches Herc's face. 

Blindfolded, Herc does not have words for the feeling that goes through him. 

... 

Herc feels dazed. He is kneeling on the stand, but also somewhere else. His heart is beating fast, and whenever someone comes close, his skin prickles even before he is touched. At the same time, there is something inside is easier to keep his balance and stay in the same place if he closes his eyes underneath the blindfold and lets his weight 

Six, eight, how many people? Duc asks Tamsin about Mako. How is she doing at school? Is she coming home for the summer? Kaori and Stacker talk, briefly, intensely, about Jaeger business an arm's length away. Stacker breaks off in the middle to check on Herc: touches him on the shoulder, checks the ropes, checks the forearms and the temperature of Herc's hands. He bends Herc's wrists, closes his fingers into a fist then opens them again, then gets his drink again. 

Kaori and Stacker talk about knots and rope work. 

...

Kaori is a woman. Sasha, Herc guesses, is a woman. Based on the voice, Aleksis is a man. 

Sasha asks: "May I touch him?" 

She has an accent from Vladivostok Tower. Stacker takes Herc by the shoulders.

... 

Sasha has -- nails. She traces his jaw, the edge of the blindfold, runs a nail over his throat. Then, she lays two fingers on his lower lip, and after Stacker goes on holding him, a hand on each of his upper arms, after a moment when Herc can hear nothing in the world except for the beating of his own heart in a dull roar that blots everything else out, Herc takes her fingers the way he would Stacker's, licking the underside and sucking. 

Sasha pulls her fingers away, laughing a little. "He should have variety in his diet." 

Stacker sounds amused, too. Pleased. "Are you offering?" 

Variety: Stacker draws up Herc's shirt, and Sasha chooses to make the weights swing, then run her nails down his chest and pinch where she has scratched, small and sharp, small points of fire on top of stripes Herc gasps, so she does it again and again and tugs on the left weight, hard enough to make Herc moan and pull away from her hands, which means hard enough to make Stacker tighten the grip that he has on Herc. 

To settle Herc back down, Sasha leaves off scratching and the pinching and begins stroke his stomach. 

She runs her fingers over the fine hairs, then traces the muscles of his stomach, then comes back up and traces the outline of the weight against Herc's skin: doesn't move it again, just traces. Admires. 

"Did you add these?"

"I did," Stacker says. His voice is warm from the admiration in her voice. 

Sasha traces a scar on Herc's sternum. "Is this yours, too?" 

"No." 

"Ah." 

Sasha runs her hand down: traces the old electroblade scar one more time, then follows the it down the ribcage, down the stomach, down to the track pants. She puts the two fingers that Herc had pulled into his mouth over the elastic. They aren't wet anymore, but Herc isn't -- 

He -- 

He doesn't know what her face looks like. He can't tell what the expression on her face is; he can't see Stacker's face or his shoulders or the way he stands. He can only judge by the grip Stacker has on his upper right arm and over his shoulder blades and pushing his chest out. The arm over his shoulder holding his shirt up. Who else is looking at him? Herc makes a noise and tries not to struggle. 

"Variety, Stacker?" Sasha asks. She is bending down a little, Herc thinks. Her hand is still on him. Her voice comes from next to his shoulder.

"Not that much," Stacker says, and Sasha takes her hand away. 

They know each other well enough that Sasha lets herself sigh, audibly: rude in other circumstances, but understood between them. 

Herc can hear the warmth in Stacker's voice when he offers her a drink. 

...

Herc -- 

...

His knees ache. His back aches. His arms feel like lead, and his chest stings where sweat runs into the places that Sasha scratched and pinched, and his nipples ache and ache and ache. 

Time dilates, and the struggle to stay upright and balanced in spite of the discomfort and blindfold becomes everything he can feel in the world. Time contracts, and Herc thinks, for a sudden, disorienting moment, that he is back on the rooftop, tied to a bench, waiting for Tamsin and Stacker to come up the path: if the sprinklers turn on, he'll be soaked and cold and miserable. Did Stacker forget about him? Is Stacker going to leave him out overnight? No, he is on a stand in the great room. He is blindfolded. His hands are tied behind his back, wrist over wrist, forearm over forearm. Stacker is bringing plates out from the kitchen. Sasha is helping. 

His knees ache. His back aches. There is a strange feeling inside his head and body and chest, and Herc thinks about Stacker's hand on his face, thumb lying against his cheekbone. 

_They --_

...

Duc refills the wine glasses of everyone around him. Tamsin calls out to Stacker down the table. Kaori Koyamada is on her way to the bathroom. When she passes by, Herc realizes she is humming the song that he heard while waiting to be seen at the agency clinic. 

Herc knows that if he falls asleep, he will fall off the stand. He makes in his throat that he hopes isn't loud enough to be heard. He tries not to become confused which way is up, which way is down, which -- 

...

Time dilates. Time compresses. There is pleasure in Stacker's voice: even when Stacker is sitting down at the dinner table, even when there are other people talking, even when Herc is breathing deep and trying to stay on the stand while navigating discomfort and adrenaline and the strange, dazed feeling inside his body, Herc can make out Stacker's voice, warm and happy. These are friends. He likes these people, and comfortable with them. He trusts them. 

Suddenly, there is silence. 

"All right?" Stacker says, low and close. 

Under the blindfold, Herc manages a noise. His throat is dry. He swallows without luck. He did not realize Stacker got up from the table: Herc shifts on the stand and whimpers when it makes the weights swing. 

Stacker puts his right hand is on Herc's right shoulder. 

"Steady," Stacker says and grips Herc a little more firmly. With his right hand, Stacker reaches under Herc's shirt and unclips the weights. Left first. Then right. Herc moans and tries not to fall forward: he settles for turning his face into Stacker's forearm and breathing rapidly. 

"Can you stand?" 

Herc tries to shake his head, but manages mainly to say _sir_. 

Stacker gets him off the stand. 

...

Laid out on the bedside stand are rope scissors, a first-aid kit, an insulated ice bucket with cold compresses, and a glass of water at room temperature. Stacker pulls off the blindfold. For ease all around, he cuts the ropes on Herc's hands, then brings Herc's hands forward and around, so that he can check their temperature and rub feeling back into them. Herc pants through his mouth as his back and legs adjust to no longer being on his knees: Herc looks over to the glass of water, but has difficulty closing his hands into fists, so Stacker holds the glass and helps Herc drink. 

"Can you lift your arms?"

Herc can, with a little assistance. Stacker lifts Herc's shirt off him and checks the places that Sasha scratched and pinched, along with Herc's nipples: no skin broken, but Herc's nipples are are swollen enough that Stacker decides to leave the hoops in place. 

"Do you want to go back to your quarters?" 

Herc is still panting from the muscles in his back and legs unknotting themselves. His throat still feels dry, and he is exhausted in a way that surprises him. But he looks up at Stacker, standing in front of him. 

The lights in the room are to the side and slightly too bright to be comfortable. 

"No." 

Stacker refills the glass of water and helps him drink it. 

...

Herc has spent longer on his knees. Herc has been more tied down in much harder positions and had more weight on his nipples. Even the blindfold isn't new, and the stand was also custom-ordered and built, specifically designed for Herc, padded to ease pressure, generously sized with a ridge so that Herc will be able to feel with his knees where the stand ends and air begins. For a week, they have been working on having Herc kneel, blindfolded. After dinner, Stacker leaves him on to work in his study. He comes back an hour later to find Herc comfortable and able to accept more. Stacker cuffs Herc's hands, adds nipple weights, and takes a long conference call. Herc shifts, breathes, flexes his hands around the cuffs, and finds ways to last. 

What was new? Stacker holding him up and out for use by other people? 

...

Stacker sits down on the edge of the bed and Herc automatically turns onto his side to lie against him: he is stiff, and his back aches, but he shifts to put his head on Stacker's knee. When Stacker touches him on the shoulder, Herc leans into it. When Stacker strokes Herc's hair, Herc closes his eyes. Stacker puts his fingers around the back of Herc's collar and sees how Herc's expression shifts: the eyes stay closed, and the rest of his face also softens. 

Stacker takes his hand away from Herc's collar. 

"Lie back," he says. 

Stiffly, Herc does, but settles when Stacker stays on the bed and touches him on the stomach. 

"Breathe in," Stacker says, and Herc does. 

"Breathe out," Stacker says, and Herc does. 

Stacker puts his hands on Herc's hips and eases the track pants down. Herc lifts his hips. When Stacker puts his right hand on top of Herc's bare thigh, Herc makes an eager noise. His eyes are still closed, and Stacker looks up Herc's torso: the long stomach with stripe of hair, gleaming in the light from the bedside lamp. There is gray in Herc's hair and some in his body hair. His nipples are pink and swollen. Underneath the hair on his chest, there is red skin from Sasha on either side of a pale, thin scar -- an electroblade scar, if Stacker remembers Herc's file correctly, from working in the Forces. 

Stacker eases the elastic waistband the rest of the way down, then shifts on the bed. 

Then puts his mouth, carefully, slowly, to Herc's cock. 

...

"He's saying your name," Duc says. "I don't think he means to. Listen."

The table goes quiet. Down at the other end, Tamsin has a coffee cup raised to her mouth. Duc has a dessert fork in hand. 

After a moment, just on the edge of audibility, a whimper. A long, hoarse breath. 

Then: _Stacker_. 

Herc's shoulders are down, and so is his head. He is hunched, heels together, and starting to rock on his knees. Another long, hoarse breath. A contained moan. 

_Sta --_

Stacker moves quickly, pushing his chair back. 

...

What was new? 

In part, being held up and out for use by other people. Herc has old memories of pride and control. In addition, he has a specific memory of being on his knees, fourteen weeks into a ten year contract and hearing the comment about being put on the table for dessert. There were half-a-hundred people at the party. His shirt was already off. A stranger was touching him in uncomfortable, frightening ways. If Stacker offered him up, how many people there would fuck him? Herc had enough experience of life to understand that all of the comments were meant to insult a man who cared deeply about being a figure worthy of respect. Stacker had, reasonably, been furious. 

Herc remembers thinking, that Stacker might put him on the table to prove that his contractor meant nothing to him. 

In part, too, fall-out from the medical exam. On some level, he had known most of what the doctor said to him. Hearing the words had been different. Seeing the expression on her face had been different. What did running errands mean if he couldn't ask for less time on his knees? Then, too, guests started arriving. Herc understood, in a sudden, frightening, new way, what being blindfolded on the stand meant. There were voices he did not know. There were faces he might never see. They could do anything that Stacker allowed. What would happen if he ended up with something that the vaccines didn't catch? It was unusual, but happened from time to time. 

Stacker held him out for Sasha's hands. She would have gone further in front of the entire dinner group. 

At the same time -- 

...

At the same time, Stacker's hand on his cheek. Stacker's hand on his shoulder The warmth of Stacker's thigh under his cheek. The solidity of Stacker's body above him. The way the light cane in Stacker's hands wiped away everything in the world. 

A hand on his face, stroking him near the edge of the blindfold. 

_They match his eyes_.

How long has it been since Herc heard someone talk about him with affection? 

...

On the bed, Stacker uses his mouth where he has previously used his hands. 

Over the years, he has gotten Herc off hundreds of times. Stacker knows when and where to touch, and now, he does it with a warm tongue and wet mouth. Herc gasps when Stacker's mouth touches his cock. Herc moans when Stacker licks the shaft while stroking his balls. When Stacker pulls Herc's legs over his shoulders, and Herc realizes that Stacker is tonguing his asshole, Herc makes a long, loud, desperate noise and presses himself back into the bed, almost afraid of how good it feels. At one point, Stacker takes his mouth away and looks up to admire his work. Knowing that Stacker will stop him if it isn't allowed, Herc starts to pinch and hurt his own nipples, sore and swollen as they are. After all, the pain will distract him until Stacker gives him permission to come. 

Also, Herc has an idea that Stacker might like watching him do it. 

...

Afterwards, Stacker rinses his mouth out, then makes sure the glass of water by the bed is refilled. He puts a cold compress on Herc's nipples and pulls the covers up: he strokes Herc's hair, shifts Herc's collar so that it will be more comfortable because Herc is already most of the way asleep. When Herc is fully asleep, he goes back to his guests in the great room, but keeps an eye on Herc's vital signs by using a tablet. 

...

When Herc Hansen is thirty-five years old, he sells himself, body and soul.

What happens when he is thirty-eight?


	35. Chapter 35

At the end of spring, Mako comes home from school. Stacker goes to the Academy to get her, and as they come up from the the aircar, Mako tells Stacker about her exams. She is glad they are over; she is happy to be home. Stacker opens the door for her, and she steps through carrying her bags. Still talking, Mako takes off her shoes. Stacker touches Herc's hair by way of a greeting. 

Mako smiles at Herc, who is kneeling. He smiles back at her. 

...

"Good?" 

Mako makes a noise; her mouth is full of fruit tart. 

Herc laughs. They are in the fancy bakery at one of the fancy department stores in Central Tower. The bakery overlooks a busy retail courtyard, and food at the Academy focuses on nutrition, rather than taste. Mako has a satchel with a tablet and various class-related items. Herc has shopping by his feet: things for the household, things Mako wanted. Two new shirts from Stacker's tailor, wrapped in brown paper. 

When Mako is done her slice of fruit tart, Herc swaps their plates, so that she can finish his, too. 

...

Mako is taller than at Christmas. Mako is taking two classes, plus a lab section. Mako is trying to add muscle to make the competitive Kwoon team next year, so a female personal trainer comes to the house twice a week to work with her in the gym. 

In addition, Herc understands, Mako willl be seeing a therapist: the night after Mako arrives home, after dinner, she and Stacker go over rules for that summer. Since relations with the Kaiju are fairly good, Mako is free to leave the house. If she wants to leave the house to study in one of the cafes on the retail floors or browse the shops, she may, as long as she stays inside the Tower and tells Herc where she is going. If she wants to leave the Tower by airtrain or otherwise, she needs to tell Stacker the night before and keep in contact with his office during the trip. If he tells her to take Herc, she'll take Herc. 

Mako frowns. "I have a lab at the University every week. Do I have to tell you or take Herc with me every time I go?"

Neither the university nor the therapist are far in absolute terms, but involve several stops on the airtrains. "What do you propose?"

They review the options together: Stacker explains that, in some ways, a regular appointment is more dangerous because it is a pattern. If someone intends to harm her, then they know her schedule. In addition, the airtrain to the University passes through a Tower where there are a number of Kaiju facilities. Mako agrees, but argues that it is a short ride, that there will be plenty of other people on the airtrain, and that she will not be going at rush times when transit will be complicated by crowds. 

Eventually, they compromise. The first few times she goes to lab, Herc will go with her. If things proceed smoothly, then she can start going by herself, as long as she checks in with Stacker's office on leaving the house to go to class, and on leaving class to return home. 

When she goes to see her therapist, though, she absolutely must take Herc with her. He'll wait outside for her until it's over. 

"Fair?" Stacker asks. 

"Fair," Mako tells him. 

They are in the great room, sitting on the couches in the great room. An arm's length away, Herc is on his knees, laying out the _go_ board for Stacker and Mako. 

...

"Up."

"Up." 

"Down." 

Herc and Mako are in the gym, and Herc is helping her with a drill: Mako's trainer left a program calling for Herc to move the training pad to specific locations; Mako executes the associated footwork pattern and hits the target pad with her hanbo. Mako's face is tight with concentration. as the pattern progresses and becomes more complex, Herc begins to breathe quickly and sweat. In fact, when Mako does the weightlifting components of her training routine, Herc spots her. After she asks, Herc explains that he never trained people in close combat, those courses were run by someone else, and they never learned anything fancy like what Mako does and the Academy teaches, but he can show her what he remembers if she'd like. 

Eyes lit up with excitement, Mako says she would very much like it. 

...

That summer -- 

... 

That summer, Mako sees a therapist high, high, high up in Shenzhen Tower: cream-colored floors, honey-colored walls, a beautifully-restored old-fashioned clock on a glass table in the waiting area, showing the time. Mako is usually quiet beforehand and quiet afterwards -- not exactly upset, Herc thinks, but closed-up. Self-contained, even more than unusual, but the third time Herc goes with Mako, forty minutes into the appointment, the receptionist comes out from behind the desk. She is taller than expected from seeing her behind the reception desk. Light brown skin and a dark blue hijab pinned at the side with a different brooch every time: sometimes flowers, sometimes geometric shapes. 

She touches Herc gently on the arm. 

She asks: is he here with Miss Mori? He should go in to her.  
...

The room is larger than Herc expected. On one side, there are a few armchairs and sofas drawn up together. On the other side, there is, to Herc's way of thinking, a surprisingly large play area laid out, as far as Herc can tell, for children. Children-sized table, pleasantly full toy chests, an easel for drawing with art supplies laid out. The lights are dim; there is a long window on one side of the room, but the curtains are drawn and give the room a dim, comfortable feeling. 

Mako sits on the couch, feet on the floor, hands in her lap, but every line of her body is rigid. Herc looks at the therapist who is sitting across from her in an armchair. When she nods, Herc goes over. 

"Miss Mori?" he asks. 

She is visibly trembling: her eyes are fixed forward, and she looks very much like the time that he was with her and Kaiju security boarded their airtrain. Carefully, Herc puts his hand on her elbow. When Mako doesn't pull away, he touches her shoulder. She goes on trembling, but doesn't move, doesn't try to speak, doesn't directly respond. She pulls in a lungful of breath, and for a moment, Herc thinks she might try to push or hit him. Herc can see how much self-control costs her. 

"Can you stand?"

Mako nods, still trembling, but doesn't rise: consequently, Herc gently pulls her up onto her feet, so that they're both standing. He puts his left arm around her waist in case her legs go; he puts his right arm over her shoulders: Mako is taller than she used to be, and the furniture in the room is subtly sized to be comfortable for children. Still, she doesn't quite come up to his chin. 

Mako sucks in her breath, still shaking, still trembling with grief and frustration and anger and self-doubt, as silent as she had been when -- 

...

The receptionist shows them a small room to the side where they can sit until Mako is ready: the therapist needs to prepare for the next patient, who will be arriving shortly, so Herc steadies Mako, and they go through to the other room. Smaller, no window, but there is a small couch, a comfortable lamp that has already been turned on, a water cooler with paper cups. Several boxes of tissues. Herc spots a model aircar rolled away underneath one of the seats. 

...

They go into the room, and as soon as the door closes, Mako begins half-crying, half-screaming. She pulls away from Herc and staggers over to the couch. Once there, she curls up so that her chest is against her knees, and she begins to let out all the sound, all the emotion that she refused to show on their airtrain rides home after sessions, or in front of the therapist: Herc hesitates, not sure what to do, but how can he let her be alone with pain like this, especially when it seems like he could help? He comes close and expects to be hit or shoved. He is ready for it. 

Instead, Mako goes on trembling and screaming and crying, seeming inconsolable. 

He is, in fact, unsure what to do -- Chuck, at this point, was variable in what he wanted and how he responded, but Mako goes on crying and rocking, so Herc sits down next to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. Contact seems to give her comfort, so he lays a gentle arm over her shoulders. Mako takes a breath that moves her entire torso, then leans into his arm. Herc pulls her close, and for a long time after that, Mako cries into Herc, long and loud and ugly. In fact, Herc puts both arms around her, because it seems to give her comfort to be touched and reassured that she is not alone. If she turns her face so that her screaming goes into him, rather than into air, she shakes less. If she holds onto his arms, she doesn't claw at herself in the same way. 

...

After a while, Mako stops gripping him quite as hard, but keeps her face pressed against his left shoulder. 

"Thirsty?" Herc asks. 

Mako can't quite manage words, so Herc carefully pulls away, then touches her on the arm to let her know that he isn't going away: he will be close. The water cooler is only on the other side of the room, three steps, maybe four away. "I'll get water." 

He comes back to the couch, cup in each hand. He gives her one and watches her drink it, hands shaking. 

Mako is thirsty from the crying: her throat is hoarse from screaming. He gives her the other cup he had been holding, too, and brings her a handful of tissues for her nose. 

...

In the quiet room, with the lamp on and the door closed and all sound shut out except for the air circulation system, Mako explains. Her voice is hoarse.

When she was younger, from time to time, she would wake up at night and think that the covers on her bed was the top of the compartment where she hid and watched when the Kaiju kill her parents. She wanted to scream, but was afraid to. She wanted to move, but could not. Frequently, she wet the bed, even though she was almost nine years old, and no matter how much he worked, no matter how tired he was, Stacker always came and comforted her and helped her get clean. He changed the sheets, but because she was still afraid and had difficulty moving, he sat down on the floor and held her until she fell asleep, then put her back in bed on top of the covers and slept on the floor the rest of the night. 

When she was younger and going to day school nearby, she went to therapy twice a week. Stacker had always come with her: when she and Stacker talked about starting again, he offered to make time, but she said that would not be necessary. 

Herc touches her hair gently, but does not say anything out loud. Face still tucked against him, Mako guesses, correctly, the question in his mind. 

"While preparing for final exams, I had two bad nights," she says. "The Academy found out about the second and told _sensei_. We talked about that today."

Then, she turns her face up to him. "Did I hurt you?" 

Her voice is so small, her face is so ashamed that it makes Herc's chest ache, so he tells her that she didn't. Of course she didn't. Nevertheless, after a moment, Mako starts to cry again: the sound is different than before. The grief comes from another part of her body. It is quieter. More adult. 

The sound, Herc thinks, of someone who thought old pain had gone away. 

Herc pulls her against his shoulder. 

...

Eventually, Mako cries herself out. 

They are still on the small couch together, still in the quiet room. Mako is curled up against Herc, exhausted, with her head on his shoulder and her legs tucked together over his lap. Then, Mako speaks up: her voice is hoarse and a little shaky. She says that she has noticed that when she is home, _sensei_ keeps his door open. Mr. Hansen does not stay with him at night. 

Is that the way things are when she isn't home?

"No," Herc says. "But Stacker doesn't mind." 

Herc wonders if Mako is going to ask whether he minds. Instead, she shifts a little. Her head is still against his shoulder. They are still on the couch close together. 

"Chuck is boarding at the Academy this summer."

"Yes." 

"Does he call?" 

"No." 

Mako breathes out. "Did you visit Chuck this year?"

"He was busy." 

Mako closes her eyes, and Herc feels her rest against him. 

...

Time passes. Nobody comes in. Nobody knocks to move them along. 

Mako does not seem to expect that there will be a need to hurry. Herc guesses the therapist might have other rooms for people to cry themselves out and recover: the benefit of having a therapist high in Shenzhen Tower, he thinks, correctly, where space is expensive, but expectations for service are high. In fact, the therapist expects that after an intense session, an ambitious, bright child being raised like Mako will need privacy to cry herself out, and time to compose herself before appearing in public. In fact, the therapist anticipates that at this early stage, given the emotions at issue, Mako will allow herself to be vulnerable with a family contractor while refusing to acknowledge anything along those lines to her, the professional: the therapist is experienced. Highly regarded. Very good at her job. Nevertheless, her relationship with Mako is new, because Mako's prior therapist retired. 

Moreover, the therapist owes Mako a lighter duty, less stringent with respect to obedience and loyalty: it would embarrass Mako to lose control with someone who did not owe a contractor's duty to her, or someone she did not yet trust. 

...

Eventually, Mako takes in a deep breath and straightens. 

"Ready?" Herc asks. 

Mako nods. Herc gives her another tissue to wipe her face. They leave the therapist's office and find a nearby bakery: before they leave, Mako thanks the receptionist for getting Mr. Hansen so quickly, and asks her to please thank the therapist, too, for their session today. She appreciates the help that the therapist has given her. 

Then, they ride the elevator down. Herc consults the directory for that floor of the Tower. They usually go to another bakery, one that Mako likes and makes the sweets she likes, but they need someplace close. Herc finds the closest one, assuming, correctly, that even though they've taken the elevator downwards, anything at this level in Shenzhen Tower will be nice enough. He is right, and Mako drinks a great deal of tea and eats her way through two sausage buns and a large slice of pound cake. Herc has a coffee. They watch people through the glass window. 

Mako buys two Japanese-language media chips to watch at home on the vidscreen. Herc takes her to therapy the following week, and the week after that, and -- 

...

That summer, Mako is taking two classes, plus a lab section. Mako is going to therapy. Mako is trying to add muscle to make the competitive Kwoon team next year, so a female personal trainer comes to the house twice a week to work with her. Other days, she follows the weight workouts that the trainer leaves, and Herc spots her. They make sure the dietary recommendations from the personal trainer are consistent with the food ordered for the house, and Herc shows her some of the things he remembers from the old days: tells her stories. She shows him basic grips and forms for the Kwoon, but very soberly, very seriously tells Herc that she is not qualified to teach him anything more advanced because she is still learning herself. 

Serious injury, she informs him, is always a possibility. 

After a moment, Mako sees the smile on Herc's face, and realizes how she sounded saying those words to Herc, who is more than twenty years older than her and has seen more of hard living than she can imagine. She smiles back at him, sheepishly, and Herc laughs and folds her into a hug. He doesn't mean to make her feel bad: it was just funny seeing her so solemn, so worried about misinforming or hurting him. It made him happy. Herc tells her that he is proud of her and impressed at how much she has accomplished this summer. Still laughing, still a little embarrassed, carefully shifting her hanbo so that she won't accidentally hit him, Mako gratefully hugs him back. 

....

Child one moment, adult the next, then child again. Mako is growing up. In fact, that summer, she asks Tamsin and Stacker if she can dye her hair. 

Academy regulations bar her from doing it, but she is home for the term, so may she? Stacker hesitates, but Tamsin tells him to stop being such an old stick. Mako worked hard during the year, so she'll take Mako to her hairdresser so that it's done properly and the color will stay all summer, instead of washing out. What color does Mako want?

...

"She's fifteen, Stacks," Tamsin adds afterwards, when Mako has gone to her room for the night. "If all she wants is to study and dye her hair, we should count our blessings." 

Stacker looks at her. There is a tumbler of Scotch in his hand, and one in hers, too. They're sitting on the couches in the great room. Tamsin's right leg is stretched out in front of her, propped on the footstool. From to time, she rubs her knee. 

Herc is clearing the dirty dishes at the table: putting the takeout containers in a pile, collecting the silverware together, finding the actual plates. He goes into the kitchen for the trash can, so that he can clear the containers into the trash without dripping on the floors. 

When he comes back:

"You know what I got up to at fifteen when I came home from the Academy?"

Stacker makes a face. "Not sure I want to know."

Tamsin laughs. "You are correct. You should not want to know, and you do not want to know. Let's just say until the day she died, my aunt made sure she always knew exactly where I was in her house. " 

A pause, and a shift in the way the room feels: Herc doesn't need to see Tamsin's face, but he feels how things change. His shoulders prickle. 

"Mako is proud, Stacker. Nothing wrong with that." 

"She wants revenge." Stacker says the last word carefully: it has special meaning between the two of them. Tamsin leans back. Stacker adds, "I don't like her walking around the City with Jaeger written on her like that, either. That blue will make her a target." 

"You think they don't know who she is already?"

Herc notes the way that way Tamsin says -- 

...

"Why does Tamsin hate the Kaiju?" 

"They killed my sister," Stacker says. 

... 

One night, during the summer, Herc is helping Stacker undress. Stacker has been to an evening work function. He left straight from the office, and Mako is in bed by the time he comes back. She was tired after seeing her therapist and had a quiz in the morning. Plus, the event was black tie, so Stacker is home late: he is, in fact, happy to be in a quiet place, comfortable and cared for. Herc takes his jacket, brings him a glass of water, carefully takes off the cufflinks. There are studs that will need to be taken off the buttons. 

In the warm light from the bedside table, Herc looks up and sees Stacker watching him. Herc asks, quietly, if he can have a question. 

Stacker nods. 

Herc asks. 

...

Stacker is visibly surprised. Out of all the things Herc could ask, this is what Herc wants to know? What else has he been thinking about? But Stacker answers, because there isn't a reason not to: years ago, Tamsin and Luna were together in an aircar. The Kaiju stopped them, and killed Tamsin's guards. They would have killed Luna, too, except Tamsin stopped them. She realized it was meant to be a kidnapping, not an assassination, so she threatened to activate a set of nanobots that had been implanted inside her brain-blood barrier. 

"Suicide trigger?" 

"Yes," Stacker says. 

Herc breathes out and nods to show that he understands: has heard of them in principle, though never seen one in action or met anyone who openly had one. They are delicate, rarely implemented because of the cost and complexity and risk. 

"Tamsin had one, and they knew it," Stacker says. "She threatened to use it if they killed Luna. So the Kaiju took them both."

"How long did the Kaiju keep them?"

"Three months." Stacker sits on the side of the bed, throat of his shirt open, cuffs loose. "It took time, but they found a way to remove Tamsin's nanobots." 

After a moment, he adds, "A week later, Jaeger Security rescued Tamsin in an abandoned plasma arms factory outside San Francisco Tower, twenty minutes away from where the kidnapping happened." 

Herc thinks -- 

...

Herc thinks of the long scar running across Tamsin's face. She has not had reconstructive surgery to take it away: he thinks, too, about Tamsin's limp. Are they from having her nanobots forcibly removed, or were they from something else? Each of those might, individually, be enough to make a person hate the Kaiju. Add three months of being held as a prisoner, used as a weapon against family, friends, and trading house: nevertheless, Stacker describes Tamsin's reason for hating the Kaiju as _they killed my sister._

How many people know Tamsin better than Stacker? 

Herc looks at Stacker, who is looking down at him, steady and even. Controlled, even when talking about this. The bedside light is yellow, and Stacker's shoulders are picked out in gold. 

"I'm sorry about your sister," Herc says, finally. 

Since he is already on his knees, he goes back to untying Stacker's shoes. 

...

Herc thinks, from time to time, about how Stacker let him bring Chuck home for a summer, so that he would be safe: something few clients would have let him do. How many fewer would have let Chuck eat the same food as Mako, sit at the same table as Mako, taken any trouble over the fact that Herc didn't want his son to see him kneeling? Herc thinks, too, about the fact that Stacker still gives him every Sunday afternoon off, so that Herc can, if he wants, wait for Chuck to call. One Sunday every four weeks, so that Herc can visit Chuck at the Academy if Chuck ever marked his schedule clear. 

Once the final exams have been marked, the Academy sends a report. One copy comes to Herc through the Network. The other comes the old-fashioned way. An Academy tradition: one of the things that distinguishes them from lesser schools. 

Herc takes both envelopes from the courier, and when the front door is closed, he looks at them: neat, manila, bearing the official chop of the headmaster, matching in every way except for the name printed on the front. 

MORI, MAKO

HANSEN, CHARLES 

...

"I'm sorry about your sister." 

...

When Stacker is eleven, who pays to keep him out of jail for stabbing a man? Luna. 

...

Who compensates the trading house that owned the nightclub Stacker tried to destroy with fire? Luna. 

Afterwards, Stacker cannot stay with his mother in the neighborhood that he has known his entire life. It is not safe for him. In addition, grief-stricken, beset by loss and the difficulty of survival, Viviane is barely managing. Who finds a boarding school that will take a black boy from a working-class family in the Slums, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away from the closest Tower, eleven years old and already a _history_ , as they say, of violent behavior? 

His sister, but how does Luna pay for him to attend?

...

Years later, Stacker Pentecost is in an interview room at a contracting agency. 

The agency wants him to choose an experienced, professional contractor. After reviewing his file and assessing his sexual profile, along with his request form, they are afraid that if they give him the letter of what he asks for, he will be dissatisfied and blame them. After all, every sign points to Stacker Pentecost being a man with high standards. Men with accents like his do not rise high in the Towers, are not able to afford luxury goods like personal sexual contractors, do not have a _reputation_ unless they demand the best and take measures to ensure they get it. The agency makes the bulk of its money at the tail end of a contract and on renewals. What good is all this if Stacker Pentecost terminates and walks away three weeks into a contract?

Consequently, they warn him. 

_This man was dishonorably discharged for fighting._

He is old. Even for his age, his body has sustained a great deal of wear-and-tear. Further, his physical profile indicates that he may have recently begun abusing alcohol, possibly in connection with being discharged from the Forces. He has been passed over by multiple clients, and is offering himself as a last resort. He is attracted to men, but was married to a woman for more than a decade: his personal history claims that he has never had a romantic relationship with a man. All of his extended romantic or sexual relationships have been with women. In fact, the last time he had sex with a man was over a decade before. He had no prior history with sexualized power exchange, and his profile did not indicate a strong interest in exploring it. Open, yes, but not something he would choose for himself. Given his background and work experience, he was expected to have difficulty taking orders of a personal or intimate nature. 

Sometimes, the agency adds, people lie about the reason they want a contract. If asked, Herc Hansen was likely to claim he is doing it for his son. He might have other reasons. 

...

 _Why are you doing this?_

_I want to make something of myself. I expect to work for it._

Tamsin looks at Luna Pentecost's younger brother across the table from her. He looks back at her, calm, steady, shoulders back and eyes dark. His face is proud; his suit is cheap, but he carries it well.

She does not think he is lying. He does not have other reasons.


	36. Chapter 36

At sixteen, Luna Pentecost has the scores and aptitude and psych profile to be a pilot. Consequently, she takes a training contract with a trading house: not the Jaegers themselves, but a house aligned with them. She finishes that contract and takes another. She finishes that and takes a third. Then, though, her little brother is done with not just private schooling, but uni. This gives her flexibility. Options. Consequently, even though Hiring offers a bonus to sign for anything over six months, she decides against taking a fourth: not that she minded working under a collar, she says, turning over onto her side so they can look at each other. 

_I wanted to see what was out there._

She smiles at Tamsin. The lights are off inside the bedroom and throughout the apartment; outside the long window, the lights of Hong Kong. There is just enough light for Tamsin to make out the curves and lines of Luna's face. 

Without saying anything, Tamsin takes Luna's hand. Luna leans forward and carefully, gently, lovingly, kisses Tamsin. 

Years later -- 

...

Years later, the air is hot and dry. Stacker and Tamsin celebrate a local autumn holiday that involves flying up into the mountains. 

Mako is back at school, and Herc goes with Stacker and Tamsin, helping Tamsin up the last flight of uneven steps from the private landing pad for the airshuttle, then laying out the blanket with cushions, the umbrella, the packed lunch that includes traditional rice cakes and roast pork and chrysanthemum wine and a floral arrangement with sprigs of dogwood. Stacker is comparatively new to the Rim, but still lights incense. Tamsin burns a paper model of a Tower and a pack of fake paper money that she has personally folded into eagles and stars. 

Then, Tamsin and Stacker eat. 

Afterwards, with the sun halfway down the sky, Herc helps Tamsin back to the air-conditioned aircar, then starts to turn back. He needs to pack up the cushions and blankets, the plates and dishes and empty containers left over from lunch, the fire-proof waste container with the ashes and burned-up paper. The whole afternoon out, they have seen no one else and only heard, distantly, other people out celebrating the holiday. Herc sweats into his shirt and tries not to think about how much he wants a drink of water, how much his knees ache. He is glad to have gotten Tamsin down the path without either of them stumbling. 

"Wait," Tamsin says, touching him on the arm.

Herc sees her face, drawn with exhaustion. He looks up the path and watches Stacker carefully wiping dust from the top of the headstone. 

...

In the autumn --

...

In the autumn, Stacker tells Herc, quietly, without Herc bringing it up or asking -- the grave has his sister's picture and her name, but there is nothing inside. 

After being rescued, Tamsin pushed and pushed and pushed until Jaeger Security made efforts, then pushed and pushed and pushed until they told her: Luna and Tamsin had been held in an abandoned plasma factory, burned out years before from a Jaeger bombing. Part of the complex was above-ground, but much of it had been dug into the hills and mountains. Two of the surviving kidnappers said that they left Luna in the underground room where they shot her in front of Tamsin. Another said she had been killed there, but heard that the body had eventually been dumped in the underground river that ran beneath the plant. 

Neither the room nor the river turned up relevant genetic material.

Tamsin bought a grave in Hong Kong, high up on a hill, close to the open sky.


	37. Chapter 37

One Saturday in the autumn, after lunch, Stacker fills a glass with water. 

He drinks part of it, then gives the rest to Herc: once done, Herc hands the glass back to Stacker. Then, Herc strips off his shirt, then his trousers, then his underwear. Autumn is bright and clear in the city; there are patches of direct sunlight on the floor of the great room, some on the floor, some on the rug, some on the furniture. 

Herc breathes deeply and rolls his shoulders, flexes his hands. 

Duc Jessop is back in the city for three weeks for work. 

...

Duc is slightly late. He apologizes; Stacker tells him it's the weekend. They have a few words about a meeting from the work week. Then, Duc starts to take his shoes off, but Stacker tells him that if he wants to keep them on, that's fine. He doesn't mind. Duc says he doesn't mind. On the other hand -- 

"Take this before I drop it," Duc says. 

Stacker makes a surprised, appreciative noise. "This is too much," Stacker tells him. 

"Take it," Duc says. A pause, laughter in his voice, but also seriousness. Appreciation. "You're doing me the favor." 

Pause, and even blindfolded, Herc can guess he is being looked at: the skin prickles on his arms and back and up the inside of his thighs. He is in the great room, naked, knees apart as wide as his shoulders, and sitting on the stool and carefully positioned so that his dick and balls are off the edge. The sun lies on his hair and gleams on the presentation hoops. 

...

Duc has to sort and lay out his rope. Stacker has to go to the kitchen for ice and tumblers. Duc holds first one kind of rope, then another against Herc. How easily does Herc's skin redden under rope? He pulls a length of the hemp against Herc's left shoulder, then a length of the jute against Herc's right, then a second thickness of hemp. There has been, Herc realizes, discussion how the afternoon will happen: what will happen. What Duc will do. Duc has Herc's general measurements and height, but reality is always slightly, importantly different. Especially because, Duc admits, laughing, that he has been practicing on a sofa cushion all week. 

These days, he adds, Kaori is more interested in tying him up than the other way around. Even for the good of the cause. 

From the couch, where he is watching and, from time to time, handing Duc rope of the length and type that he wants, Stacker sounds amused. "How are the two of you?"

"Good," Duc says, and the expression on his face conveys something else, too. 

"That good?"

"We're talking about it," Duc says. 

The voice comes from next to Herc's shoulder: he has, Herc thinks, at least six pieces of rope running over his shoulders. Three on each side. Probably more. There is rope on his sides, some of it knotted, others hanging down in pieces that brush his legs, his sides, move everytime he breathes even though he is trying to keep still. There -- 

...

Before Duc ties Herc's hands, Stacker comes off the couch and checks to make sure that he is comfortable. Does he need to stretch his legs? Does he want a drink? Does he need to use the bathroom? 

"No, sir," Herc says. 

"Are you sure?"

Before Herc answers, Stacker touches him on the shoulder to make sure Herc pays attention and thinks and understands and works through the strange, distant feeling inside his body: he is naked already. It's true. He'll also need Stacker to take the blindfold off. However, whatever humiliation there is in being naked in the middle of the great room has already happened, and Stacker will help him through the rest. 

If he waits, on the other hand, until after Duc has tied his hands -- how would he use the bathroom? Would he have to ask Stacker for each part? Stacker might say no, because Herc hadn't taken it when offered. Herc thinks of being blindfolded, having to be walked to the guest bathroom, having to be guided to the toilet, having to have his dick held while he pissed if he stood. If he sat, he might need less help, but he'd still need someone to wipe him off or otherwise stand or -- 

Even blindfolded, Herc knows that he has gone red with shame. Stacker strokes the side of his neck, just above the collar: Duc has gone very quiet. 

"Please, may I use the bathroom, sir?" Herc asks. 

"Yes," Stacker says. 

As a reward for thinking through things, for understanding the situation, Stacker offers Herc water again. 

Herc takes it. Stacker helps him off the stool, walks him to the bathroom, and lifts up the blindfold. Closes the door and lets Herc piss with the door closed and wipe and wash his hands and look at himself for a long, frightening moment in the mirror. The blindfold is still over the top of his head. There is rope on his shoulders. 

When Herc opens the bathroom door and Stacker is there, Stacker puts the blindfold back, and everything is dark again, and -- 

....

"How far up can he keep his hands?"

Now, Herc is kneeling on the coffee table, and and Duc has Herc's left arm turned up behind his back. He tries it in a variety of places -- low, almost in the small of Herc's back. Higher, in the middle of the back. Higher still, so that Herc's elbows are pointed downwards. Duc likes the look of the last, the way it draws Herc's shoulder's back and forces his head up, the way it makes the muscles of Herc's back look, and above all, the way it makes Herc's breathing shallow. 

"Depends on how long you want to keep him tied," Stacker says, and there is a moment while Duc continues to hold Herc's left hand pinned up high behind him: still blindfolded, being held by rope and hands, Herc doesn't see Duc's face, but something about it makes both Stacker and Duc laugh. 

Herc guesses that -- 

...

Duc chooses, in the end, the option that Herc has learned to take for hour after hour. 

"Comfortable?" Duc asks, using his left hand to hold Herc's wrists. 

It takes Herc a moment to realize that Duc is asking him. 

"Yes," Herc says, and doesn't know whether to put a _sir_ on the end: after a moment of hesitation after the first word, he decides against it. It -- 

Stacker doesn't correct him. 

...

"Too tight?"

"No."

"Sure? Roll your wrists for me." 

"How about your shoulders?" 

Herc rolls his shoulders forward, then back. He is a little more comfortable talking to Duc without being able to see him. 

...

Duc's glass -- Scotch, whiskey, Herc knows that Stacker likes Scotch, but isn't going to pretend he can tell the difference blindfolded and smelling it at a distance -- has ice in it. When Duc stops for a sip, his fingers come back cold. The first time Herc flinches from the cold fingers on the inside of his wrist, Duc makes a point of warming his fingers against his own palm, then testing them on his own skin before touching Herc. 

...

Duc works on the harness, and Herc sits, blindfolded. Stacker goes back to the couch, and Duc and Stacker talk. Stacker asks after Duc's parents, who are living comfortable, retired lives in Ho Chi Minh Tower. Duc asks after Mako's schooling and -- in a quiet, serious voice, the state of Tamsin's health. He is making, as far as Herc can tell, a series of knots connecting the ropes at his shoulders to others lower down on Herc's body. The same knots are called for over and over, in slightly different places. Duc shifts from time to time to get a better angle. 

While talking about Tamsin's health, though, Duc goes still. He stops working. His left hand is on Herc's bare right thigh; his right hand is in the small of Herc's back. 

Afterwards, Duc curses and steps away for a moment to collect himself, then comes back. 

Stacker says nothing, but Herc hears the ice cubes in Stacker's glass rattle. 

...

A little afterwards, to change the mood, Duc tells Stacker a story about getting into trouble in Seattle Tower.

"This happened when you were growing up?"

"I mean, I grew up there. But this was last week."

Stacker is stunned into silence, then starts to laugh. Duc laughs, too, and turns back to the rope: puts a hand on Herc's chest to let Herc know that he is being addressed, tells him to breathe in deeply, so that he can make sure the harness isn't too tight. Herc does, and -- 

...

There is -- 

...

There is an adjustment on one of the ropes over his shoulders. Duc checks again: are Herc's hands still comfortable? If Herc takes another take deep breath, can he hold it without trouble? 

"Yes." 

Again, Herc leaves off the _sir_ without entirely knowing why, but feeling, somehow, in this context, that it would be wrong to call anyone but Stacker _sir_ : this time, no mistaking the thought and intent. 

Stacker comes off the couch. 

...

First, Herc hears the clink of Stacker carefully putting his tumbler down on a glass-topped side-table. Then, he strains to hear whether Stacker is coming towards him or going to the kitchen. The main area of the great room has an area rug over it, but beyond that, the floor is heard. Stacker is not wearing shoes, but if Herc listens hard, he can try to make out whether Stacker is coming nearer or going away. 

The answer: nearer. Herc breathes out when he realizes, breathes out again when he feels Stacker's hand on his shoulder, touching, very gently, the ropes running over his shoulders. Stacker follows the rope running across Herc's sternum, then it to go up, over the collar, over Herc's adam's apple. Duc's hands had been slightly cool from the occasional sip, but Stacker has been drinking steadily, and his fingertips are out-and-out cold: Stacker bends down and exhales. 

Without thinking, Herc breathes in. Holds it as long as he can without choking. Breathes it out slowly, almost reluctantly. 

...

Herc recognizes the smell of household laundry, Stacker's soap, and Stacker's aftershave. 

Stacker himself. 

The expensive, fancy Scotch or whisky that Duc brought -- Herc is guessing Scotch, because Stacker likes to drink Scotch. 

The surprisingly sweet smell of the rope and the way it holds Herc over his shoulders and his sides. One particular rope running across his upper back prickles in a way that the others don't. It almost-but-not-quite hurts. It almost-but-not-quite itches. He feels it mostly when he breathes deeply or quickly, or lets his shoulders slump. Having felt it a few times, though, it hangs in the back of his mind, somehow like an easier, pain-free version of being struck with the light cane: Stacker has never hit him on the torso with the cane, only on the legs and ass. 

Herc is aware, from both inside and outside his body at the same time, that Stacker is nearby. Herc knows, in a similar way, that he is starting to breathe more quickly. The rope across his upper back itches. Blindfolded, Herc makes a noise in his throat. 

...

Arms tied, rope over his shoulders: Herc knows how he feels when blindfolded and Stacker is far away. He knows, too, how he feels when he is blindfolded and Stacker is touching him. The second is better than the first. Herc feels the difference in his chest and his body and every part of him: one particular rope over his upper back itches. There is a slow, small ache in his lower back. He is naked and blindfolded and kneeling on a raised platform and essentially helpless. Herc knows Duc is in the room, but every time Stacker shifts, every time Stacker breathes and Herc hears it, the world narrows to a point. Stacker's hand is so close to being back on him. Herc can call up what it feels like. Familiar. Wide. Comforting. 

Herc makes a noise and strains upward. Stacker breathes out and bends, carefully, down another fraction: Herc hears the sound of cloth moving over Stacker's skin. Instinct tells him that Stacker is closer. He can almost smell Stacker again. 

Herc moans. Even though he is not hurting, even though he is only a little physically uncomfortable, even -- 

"Please, sir." 

He half-pants, half-moans the words. Herc expects Stacker to put his cold fingers into his mouth: he is ready for them. 

Instead, Stacker kisses him.

...

Four years in, four years in, four years -- 

... 

They have been mouth to mouth before. 

Herc remembers having Stacker's mouth on him one afternoon in Stacker's bedroom before his nipples were pierced, and the weights had been clamped on. Stacker took a call and left the weights on; Herc had been frantic with confusion and fear and desperation that amplified his discomfort into pain. When Stacker came back, he pinned Herc on the bed, then alternated putting his mouth on Herc's mouth and putting his mouth over the hot, aching places on Herc's chest. He remembers, too, an early night when Stacker came home drunk and happy from a dinner outside the house and pulled him into bed and kissed the back of his neck. Herc thinks that one way or another, he may have had Stacker's tongue in his mouth before. It feels familiar, like the rest of Stacker's body. 

Kissing, though, is new. Herc settles onto his knees and tilts his head back. He knows how to give Stacker his mouth. 

Stacker kisses him, carefully, thoroughly. Slowly. 

As if he has been thinking about how he would. As if he has been waiting. 

...

Herc moans. Stacker puts one hand behind Herc's head: still keeping one hand behind Herc's head, still kissing him, Stacker uses his other hand to touch the rope running over Herc's shoulders, over his chest, down his back. Stacker doesn't move away, and with Stacker's tongue in his mouth, Herc makes a grateful, eager noise. When Stacker does pull back from Herc's mouth, he leaves his hands in place. 

He kisses Herc's neck, a little above the collar. Herc moans. 

Stacker kisses the other side of Herc's neck, a little above the collar on that side. Herc moans and tries not to press himself too much against Stacker. Stacker pulls the skin of Herc's neck against his teeth; still tied, Herc arches between shoulder and knees. Stacker brings his mouth back to Herc's and breathes out, warm on Herc's wet lips. Herc is still wearing the blindfold. 

Stacker kisses Herc again. 

...

After what feels like a long, long time, but also very little time, Duc asks, quietly, if Stacker will help Herc stand. Stacker does. Herc stands. He is still blindfolded; his arms still tied behind his back, and the ropes for the harness cross and recross the top half of his body. His heart is still beating fast. Stacker is standing behind him, and Herc feels a strange ache thing in his chest. His legs are unsteady, and the one rope over his back has, with Herc's rapid breathing, started to -- 

"All right?" Stacker says, softly, right hand on Herc's side. 

"Yes, sir." 

Herc tries to stand more steadily, stand straighter and breathe more deeply, but Stacker touches Herc at the hip. Herc can lean back against Stacker, if he needs to. 

"The -- " Herc struggles for words. 

Stacker touches the rope that prickles and itches at the same time, that has now started to hurt in a burning, aching way every time Herc shifts his shoulders. "This?"

"Yes, sir." 

"Does it hurt?"

Herc doesn't know what he is supposed to say: his head still feels strange, and so does his body. He doesn't know how to put into words that it starting to hurt, but that if Stacker wants him to lean back on it, he will. If Stacker wants to -- Herc breathes in and tries to fight the strange feeling that will drag him back under if he thinks, in detail, about how much he would let Stacker hurt him. How much he wants -- 

After a moment, without moving his hands, Stacker asks, "I'm going to take it off." 

From the calm, businesslike way Stacker says the words, Herc knows they aren't meant for him. 

"Go ahead." 

...

"How far apart should his legs be?" 

"Doesn't have to be too wide," Duc says. 

...

Stacker slides one hand over the rope on Herc's shoulders. Duc says that Stacker should be able put his hands under the rope and pull a little: he made sure to leave room for that, because he remembers how much Stacker likes _that_. Herc feels warm air over the back of his neck. He can feel the width and breadth of Stacker. Herc tries to make his heart beat more slowly. He tries to breathe deeply. 

...

Stacker puts two fingers underneath the network of ropes over Herc's back and gives a light, experimental tug. The ropes hold, so Stacker settles his hand around where the ropes along his back join together. When Stacker pulls, Herc feels it: not just over his shoulders, but on his chest, on his sides, along all the ropes and knots and the places on his body where he had felt Duc's hands. When sweat runs into the part of his back where the prickly rope had been, it stings. 

Left hand in the rope, Stacker puts his right hand on Herc's dick and works on getting it at least thick. 

When it is, Duc brings a strand of narrow rope under Herc's balls. It feels different than the rope over Herc's shoulders: smoother, with an almost slippery surface. Narrower. Duc takes it up, around, around, around again, then twice just around the base of Herc's dick. Duc holds it in place with a finger, then uses his other hand to touch Herc's balls, where the skin is pulled tight. 

Herc moans. 

"Too tight?" 

To test, Stacker runs his right hand down Herc's side, over the ropes. Herc moans again, a little louder. When Stacker touches the tip of Herc's dick, very lightly at first, then with more pressure, Herc gets harder. 

"How tight should it be?" Stacker asks. He feels, through the rope, how Herc takes the idea. 

Duc considers. "You want him to come with it on?"

Herc -- 

....

Slowly, Stacker pulls off the blindfold. 

How many hours has Herc spent under a blindfold during his contract? They have even practiced how Herc should open his eyes in a bright room: Herc should not open his eyes right away, unless Stacker specifically tells him to. Instead, he should let himself adjust to having the blindfold off, then wait until his eyes are ready. 

When Herc opens his eyes, Herc realizes he is between Stacker and Duc, and he sees, for the first time, the face attached to the hands and voice: Duc is is shorter than Stacker, built on narrower lines. Darker-skinned than Herc expected from someone who grew up half the year in Seattle Tower and half the year in Ho Chi Minh Tower. After wearing a blindfold for so long, colors are unexpectedly vivid: Duc is wearing a dark blue t-shirt and soft-looking gray trousers. 

"Track Duc," Stacker says, softly, and for a moment, Herc thinks he is going to be told to go over to Duc. He feels Stacker take his hand away, and Herc steadies himself in multiple ways.

"Yes, sir." 

"Kneel."

"Yes, sir."

Awkwardly, keeping his eyes on Duc, Herc settles down on his knees: trusts that Stacker wouldn't tell him to kneel if there weren't room between Stacker's legs or on the floor, trusts that if he goes down with his eyes on Duc, Stacker will keep himself from falling over and hurting himself. In fact, Stacker puts a hand on Herc's upper arm and lets him use it as a touch guide in getting down. Then, to reassure and settle him, Stacker touches Herc on the cheek, just below where the blindfold had been. Herc knows he is sweating a little into the ropes, and he feels -- 

Herc is on his knees. He is still looking at Duc, but can just see, if he unfocuses his eyes, Stacker's legs on either side of him. He can feel them, too, warm and solid. There is a touch of a hand at his cheek. 

"Look down."

Herc starts to say yes, sir, but the sound goes out of him when he looks down. The ache in his chest, the strange feeling in his head, the unsteadiness of his body all come rushing back. 

...

There is rope over his body: more of it than he thought, tied in diamond shapes down his front, almost in a net. The presentation hoops gleam -- Herc watched Stacker polishing them before having Herc put them in himself. Each is framed in its own diamond of rope. Brown rope. Pale skin. Freckles underneath chest hair. Pink nipple with silver ring through it. 

Tied to the rope between those diamonds is -- 

...

Most of the rope that Duc used is brown, a shade off from the parts of Herc around the neck and the arms that have gotten sun. The rope around his balls and dick, though, is bright red. Herc recognizes it from the decorations hung out on holidays, from the envelopes given out for the local New Year celebration: the exact color, the exact shade. When Duc was working, Herc felt the rope. When Herc was kneeling down, he felt the rope. Every time he breathes or shifts, blindfold on or off, he -- felt it. 

Now, he sees it, too.

He knows that he is getting harder just from looking at it while kneeling with Stacker above and over him. Herc has gotten hard before with rope on his body: Stacker has never put rope around his dick or balls. 

Stacker hasn't told him to look away yet. 

...

There is the rope around his balls, holding them out and tightly. There is the rope around his dick, with loops around the bottom, a knot to keep the loops in place, then loops and knots spaced at regular intervals up the length of his dick. The last knot is a little below the head of his dick. From there, the red rope goes up his chest to where it's tied to the harness, directly over his sternum and his -- 

Feeling it is one thing. Seeing it is another. Knowing that he stayed in place while that was done to him -- 

"For the rest of the night," Stacker says, hand very light against Herc's cheek, touching him very gently. "You don't have to use words." 

The strange feeling from inside Herc's head is everywhere now: Stacker strokes the side of Herc's cheek with his open palm, jaw to cheekbone. Without thinking, Herc buries his face against Stacker's palm. 

They stay like that for a period: Herc loses track of how many breaths in, how many out. 

Then -- 

...

Stacker's voice is quiet. Careful. The hand he uses to touch Herc's hair is gentle. Duc didn't talk to Kaori about anything besides rigging: does he want to watch? 

"Are you kidding? Yes." 

Stacker breathes out, not quite a laugh: pleased at his friend's enthusiasm, amused at how Duc chooses to express it, but he is also looking down at the top of Herc's head. Herc's face buried against Stacker's leg. Herc body is turned towards him. Stacker guesses, correctly, that Herc's eyes are closed. 

...

To make it easier for Herc, Stacker puts the blindfold back on before he has Herc, still tied, suck him off. Stacker sits on the couch; Duc watches. Herc waits for either the jingle of Stacker undoing his belt, or the sound of Stacker unzipping his fly: the belt it is, and Stacker's fingers under his jaw, pulling him into position. Stacker comes mostly down Herc's throat, but pulls out a little before the end, then turns Herc him around so that Duc can look at Herc, still prettily tied from shoulder to dick and upper thighs, still blindfolded, still hard. 

There is come striped on his chin. His mouth is wet and open and -- 

Stacker zips his fly and re-does his belt. 

Herc is still on his knees, and Stacker touches Herc on the shoulder between the rope and his collar and slowly, carefully, giving Herc plenty of time to close his eyes against the sudden light, eases the blindfold off Herc. Then, after a moment, on his own, without Stacker saying a word, Herc straightens his shoulders. He opens his eyes: looks directly at Duc. Blinks a few times, adjusting to the light, but keeps his mouth open. Stacker's come is still on Herc's chin, but there is a little balanced on his tongue. 

When Stacker touches the side of Herc's neck, just above the mark Stacker left with his mouth -- Herc, still looking at Duc, swallows. 

Stacker kisses Herc again. 

Duc takes a picture. 

...

How long has it been since Herc called anyone besides Stacker _sir_? Who was the last person that kissed Herc, carefully? Gently? 

...

In the autumn, Stacker tells Herc about Luna's grave. He says that by the time Luna died, she was the only family he had. Luna got him out of the Slums. Luna went on a corporate contract, partially because she had worked hard in school and wanted recognition, partially because she wanted an adventure, partially because she had always wanted to be a pilot and a corporate contract was the only way she could be trained. 

Partially, Stacker says, carefully, cautiously, not used to telling anyone his life story, let alone old pain or vulnerability -- because she wanted to send her brother to school. 

...

Years before --

...

Years before from one point of view, years later from another: Luna tells Tamsin that she had a younger brother who wanted to work for the trading houses. He had worked hard in school and gotten the credentials. Nevertheless, he was having difficulty finding anyone who would give him a chance -- not even a fair chance, but a chance at all. He had excellent scores and grades, and the interviews would go well, but security refused to pass him. 

Tamsin looked at Luna, and chose her words very carefully: how badly did her brother want to climb? 

If he could find someone to take him on a personal contract, he could bypass standard security. Luna had been on a corporate contract, but had she seen what personal ones could be like? Was Luna comfortable with her brother doing something like that? Personal contracts changed people. 

Luna closed her eyes and breathed out. She had been already thinking about it. She had been already arguing about it with Stacker. She -- 

...

Personal contracts _changed_ people. 

A week or so past the start of winter, Herc willfully, intentionally, repeatedly refuses orders to come home.


	38. Chapter 38

Herc is in a bar in the Slums. His collar chirps. 

Herc ignores it. 

...

Herc is in a bar in the Slums. His collar chirps. 

Herc flags down the bartender. Just as he is about to tell her that he wants the rest of the bottle and will pay for it, up front, cash on the bar, his collar chirps again. When he doesn't seem to shift off the stool, doesn't say anything about this being his last drink or how he should get going, the bartender looks at him. Her expression stiffens: it's a nice place. Busy, not crowded. Respectable. Mostly people from the neighborhood, out for a quiet, relaxing drink with friends. People who commute into the Tower for work and commute back at the end of the day. In the other room, a group is watching some kind of sporting event on a vidscreen. 

"I don't want trouble," the bartender says. She has the local accent, but is fluent in English. 

Herc looks back at her. 

"You should go," she adds, just in case it isn't clear. 

Another moment, Herc guesses, and someone is going to step up and ask if there is a problem: maybe the two large men sitting in the corner, who look like regulars. Maybe the hard-looking woman down at the end of the bar, keeping an eye on him and the bartender. Partner? Sister? She has a glass in her hands, but Herc is willing to bet that if there is trouble, she'll bring something out from under the counter: this close to the base of Kowloon Tower, in a place like this, probably not a shockstick. But definitely something. 

Instead, Herc pushes his stool back. He goes outside. He doesn't want to make trouble for anyone who isn't looking for it. 

His collar chirps again. 

...

Is Herc upset about sucking Stacker off in front of someone else? 

Not directly. 

...

Is Herc angry about Duc tying his hands, his torso, displaying his body like a present, dick and balls wrapped in red? 

No. 

Is Herc angry about how close he came to being fucked by someone besides Stacker? 

There had been the moment at the dinner party when one of Stacker's friends put her hand on the waist of Herc's track pants. New hands were on him. Herc sensed that different things might be asked of him: new kinds of humiliation, new types of pain. Would Stacker have opened the cabinet in his bedroom to Sasha, and advised her on how to hurt him? In the end, Stacker said no. Herc had been afraid. Herc hadn't been ready. 

Weeks later, though -- 

...

Herc doesn't react to the idea of being _shared_ in words, or even images. 

Instead: a wave of emotion, strong enough to be a physical sensation. A flash of feeling. A gut reaction. Something like what he felt realizing that if he waited until after his hands were tied to use the bathroom, he would have to rely on Stacker for every step of using the toilet. Shame? Embarrassment. Humiliation. At the same time, a feeling on his skin and inside his body. 

Discomfort and anticipation at the same time. Fear and excitement together. 

...

In the course of his contract, Herc has learned not just to accept, but take pleasure from things that, four years ago, even thinking about would have left him ugly with shame and anger. Had those feelings been based based on ideas of what people like him did, or what they enjoyed? Yes. Were some of the ideas narrow? Yes. If they had met in other circumstances, he and Stacker they have ended up playing similar games?

Possibly. 

...

Before Duc arrived, they went through what would happen. Halfway through, Stacker told Herc to come off his knees and sit on the edge of the couch. 

He started again. He laid out possibilities: the rope, what Duc might want to do, what Stacker would expect. What Herc should expect. Duc would tie him, but wouldn't touch Herc other than that, because that was the arrangement that had been worked out with Duc's primary partner. 

"All right?"

 

Herc looked Stacker in the face. "Yes."

"With all of it?"

 

Herc moved his eyes over Stacker's face. There was sunlight on Stacker's shoulders, but none on his face. "Yes." 

"Do you want something to drink?"

 

Herc thinks for a moment. He starts to rise. "I can get it." 

Stacker touches him on the arm, so Herc stays where he is. Instead, Stacker goes to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water. He drinks part of it, then gives the rest of it to Herc: later, on his knees, rope over the shoulders and around his dick and balls, with Stacker's come on his chin and tongue, Herc opens his eyes. Stacker is standing behind him; Duc is standing in front of him. Stacker has Herc's blindfold in hand. 

Herc makes a decision about what he wants. 

...

Herc is not angry at the idea of being shared out. 

Herc -- 

...

"I don't want trouble," the bartender says. 

Herc looks back at her. She has dark hair, and a quiet, steady face. 

"You should go," she adds. 

Down the bar, her co-owner has a hand underneath the bar. Two regulars pause in the middle of talking. 

...

Outside the bar is a commercial strip off the main strip, organized for the benefit of local residents and thus, fairly dark and unflashy. A convenience store. A few quiet eateries. Street lights and sidewalks installed and maintained by the local business association. 

For the residents, there are tidy apartment blocks stand behind high walls and gates and ident requirements. Sometimes even a human guard: on the other side, real trees, blocks of families going through evening routines. It's a quiet neighborhood off the main drag. At the corner, there is a stop run by Hyung House Transit, promising groundbuses every ten minutes to the West Entrance of Kowloon Tower, which is large and close enough that it isn't so much on the horizon as the entire horizon, enormous and pale. If Herc turns his head to the left, it is there. If he turns his head to the right, it is there. If he looks up, the Tower stretches up into the sky, pale and wide, signal lights for airtraffic spaced at intervals. Herc is already forty fives minutes walk out from the Tower, and it still fills everything: is still only one of more than two dozen Towers in Hong Kong, the greatest city on the Rim and therefore the world. 

Herc breathes deep to clear his head, turns to the side to make more room on the sidewalk for a mother finishing up her evening shopping, child in tow. 

His collar chirps, and Herc puts his hands in pockets of his jacket. He turns right, away from Kowloon Tower. 

...

Herc had forgotten the smell of the Slums: unfiltered air, moved around by means other than a circ system. 

Herc --   
...

After a time, a ground vehicle pulls up next to him. It's a Slums-style ground-transport with wheels rather than gravlifts. The name and the logo of the sponsoring entertainment district are picked out in glowing paint: Herc recognizes the name from advertisements by the Tower exit he left through, and the logo is ringed by the signs of trading houses with major commercial commitments there. Herc counts five trading houses there, including one he doesn't know with a symbol that looks like two serpents wrapping themselves over an open palm. The transports are windows along the side, and faces in the windows. Herc can't make out features, but can guess what they might look like. Has been on buses like this before. 

The door at the front opens with a hiss, and an entertainment district employee in charge of the bus sticks her head out -- she she gets paid on commission for every person she brings in. 

"Hey soldier," she calls out. "Looking for a good time? Free ride into the Boneslums." 

"I'll walk," Herc says. 

She eyes him, then signals to the driver. 

"Suit yourself." 

The door hisses shut again, and the groundbus accelerates: the driver never turned the engine off. Herc breathes in, then out. Remembers the smell of hydrocarbon exhaust. 

Ignores the chirp on his collar, which Herc thinks, has grown louder since he left the bar. 

Goes on walking. 

...

Herc remembers nights out. Less once he was married with a kid at home, and he missed it at first. Early on, him and Ange had fights about it. How much time he spent out on them, how much he spent drinking. How much she missed going out. How -- 

Herc realizes that he has not thought, specifically, about Angela for a while. 

...

In Hong Kong, an entertainment district came on gradually. At the base of Kowloon Tower, there was enough electricity to run apartment homes, commercial areas, signage, even strips with street lights and sidewalks where the merchant associations banded together for the benefit of their customers. Sewage. Transit services. . 

Nevertheless, even in Slums as comparatively comfortable as the ones outside Kowloon Tower, an entertainment district came in stages: first, advertisements. Then, billboards. Then, the disappearance of family apartment blocks and small shops serving residents. Then, the holo projections. Then, the sound: crowds and voices and pumped in-music. Then, the crowds. A popular, successful entertainment district was wall-to-wall humans on a Friday night. Promoters. Touts. Vendors. Bars spilling out into the streets. Herc makes eye contact with a naked woman in a brothel display window; inside a frame of neon green, she lifts her shirt up to show him her breasts. 

Herc is fairly sure she is a real person and not a promotional vid. 

Bars spill out onto the street. Herc keeps his hands in his pockets so that the touts can't push cards into his hands, and sticks to the middle of the thoroughfare, so that he won't be pulled into a dance hall. His wallet is in the front pocket of his jacket, inside his left hand, and the only lights are from the signs for either side. The crowd is less Forces and contractors than Herc expected it would be. There are business people, mostly local, plus a few people from the Towers. He guesses the bored-looking woman watching over a clutch of vomiting suit-wearers is trade clan security. Her arms are crossed over her chest. Lit from the side in orange, her face looks briefly, strangely familiar. The ground by her feet is lit in blue, and when Herc looks away and lets his eyes run over the solid wall of humanity ahead of him, for the first time in a long time -- Herc thinks about his brother. 

Scott would like this. 

Herc can see him here. 

...

Herc walks through and keeps his hands in his pockets. A fight breaks out in front of him -- someone shoves someone else, and they scuffle, which interrupts the flow of the crowds. Consequently, for a full twenty seconds, until friends break up the fight, Herc is caught in front of a tattoo store, where a young man is getting a tattoo in the main display window. His squadmates are in the window with him, crowding the tattoo artist, making jokes that make the kid curse and try to move, which makes the tattoo artist curse, too. The unit mark is an octagon divided into wedges, with a star in the middle. Herc guesses the kid is eighteen, a year out of training. There is already a bull on his left shoulder, across from the unit mark. He is getting writing in the local style put on his bicep. The unit motto? A lover's name? Herc has picked up a little of the spoken local language over the years, but only basic ideograms. 

Then mist comes down: nothing heavy, certainly not atmospheric, but it feels good and cuts the heat of having so many bodies in proximity to so many bright lights. In fact, it is faintly and artificially scented with lemon. A recorded voice, loud enough to cut through the crowd noise and the sound from lesser speakers, reminds everyone of the Lucky Star casino at the north end of the entertainment district. 

When Herc tilts his head back, he sees how the mist makes the neon brighter. 

...

Eventually -- 

...

Eventually, Herc is tired of walking and tired of being reminded about the past. 

He turns off the main strip and ducks into a bar: close enough to the Boneslum that after he has ordered and gotten and drunk his first drink, but before he has made any headway into his second, one of the resident fixers approaches him. Middle-aged man. Not local. Round, smoked glasses even though the bar is dark and barely lit except for the blue neon sign up front. Herc imagines that the man makes him as having walked through the entertainment district without having found anything he wanted. 

"Looking for something?'

For a moment -- 

...

Sex? Drugs? Herc knows that both are on offer, individually and in combination. Everything in the entertainment district and more. He walked through the main strip with his hands in his pockets, but saw the woman lift her shirt at him, smelled the synthetic alcohol. 

On the other hand, the collar has escalated. Instead of chiming, it has started to vibrate: perhaps Herc is in a loud place. Perhaps Herc has been temporarily deafened by loud music. 

Consequently, the collar vibrates. It's unpleasant, and the vibrations are now strong enough to be visible and make noise on their own. The collar vibrates again, and the fixer blinks. Herc doesn't move, and the fixer looks worried. Suddenly, Herc no longer looks like a comfortable ex-Forces contractor with money to splash on a pleasant, authorized night away from responsibility in the company of the persons of the genders of his choice, with as much pharmacological assistance as his pocket could afford. If the leave was unauthorized, the client would trigger the shock function. If the disobedience continued, there might be shocks. If the shocks continued, Herc might lose consciousness, and there would be a retrieval team. 

If the client didn't want him anymore, or if the shocks were sufficiently strong, or if something went wrong -- 

What if Herc dies leaving a tab? What if his client refuses to settle his debts, or blames the fixer or the establishment where Herc is found for keeping him out? 

Seeing things have changed, Herc pushes his stool back. He says he needs to piss. 

...

For a moment after being asked, Herc -- 

....

Herc is angry because for a long stretch end of autumn, Stacker is busy. 

The situation that brings Duc to the city continues. After a week or two, Stacker becomes involved, and for once, it is not Kaiju-related. Instead, it has to do with a complex series of corporate maneuvers: two mergers and the associated financing work, leadership transitions for over a dozen second-tier subsidiaries and thirty third-tier subsidiaries, a coordinated hostile corporate raid where Jaeger Security would be on call in the event of a successful or unsuccessful bid. There are nights, in fact, where Stacker is in the city, but doesn't come home: he sleeps at the office on a couch. One night he comes back late when he expected to be back early, but there was a last-minute crisis, a conference call that ran particularly late, then an emergency that broke in from the Seattle team on the other side of the Rim. At half-past ten, Stacker shut off the chime that would get Herc out of bed when the airshuttle was close to home. 

Consequently, when Stacker comes home after midnight, Stacker expects the house to be dark, for Herc to be in bed. 

Instead, Herc is by the door. 

Sitting, yes, half-asleep, true, but as the door opens, Herc is shifting to get his knees properly underneath him: he is wearing one of the long-sleeved shirts that, after all these years, Stacker still likes Herc in best. In addition, Herc is wearing the dark blue track pants that Stacker likes his ass in. 

Stacker remembers mentioning to Herc, in the morning, that he might be home early. 

Gently, Stacker touches Herc's face. Herc, with his eyes still half-closed with sleep, tilts his head back and wets his lips, wordlessly offering his mouth in case the touch meant that Stacker had been looking forward to fucking it. 

...

Stacker heating dinner in the kitchen, then being too hungry to sit at the dining table: eating at the counter with Herc's face pressed against his leg, breathing through the discomfort of kneeling on hard tile without a pad. Fork in hand, Stacker pauses, looks down, and sees Herc with his face turned up, quiet, patient. 

On the weekends, Stacker works, and Herc sits, underneath the desk, head resting against Stacker's thighs, for hour after after hour. 

...

One Sunday morning, Stacker is back from three straight days in Seattle Tower, followed by a brutal one-day Saturday trip to Tokyo Tower. He flew out early in the morning; he came back late at night. Six hours later, it is still only mid-morning. There is sunlight over the bed, and Stacker is on his side, reading work messages on his tablet. Herc comes back into the bedroom after brushing his teeth. 

Stacker looks up. 

"I have to go in." Stacker's face is tight with exhaustion in the process of becoming irritation: then he sees Herc's expression, and Stacker's face softens at the eyes and the mouth. 

Herc -- 

...

The men's room is at the back and surprisingly large. The floors are wet, but smell mostly like bleach; there urinals along one wall, with sinks and one tiny, flimsy stall. In the Towers, bathrooms tended to be gender-neutral, divided into separate stalls that ran from floor to ceiling, with common sinks, but not in the Slums. 

Herc takes the urinal furthest from the door. 

There is no one else there. Herc thinks: he could stay in the bathroom until someone else came back. He could kneel on the floor. He go into the stall and -- 

...

He could go out and pick a fight and try to get his face kicked in. Herc thinks, for a while, about the feeling of hitting someone first, then being hit, then squaring up to hit them back: pain and adrenaline and noise and wiping away what came before. 

...

He could try. Alternatively, he could walk back outside and talk to the fixer about a place where waiting in the bathroom for dick might actually get him that: for a moment, Herc thinks about the vid and sound function that he knows exist on his collar. If Stacker got worried enough, for example, he might turn them on. What would he see? What would be enough to make him use the shock function? Herc looks at the walls, tiled halfway up, the lights. Breathes in the smell of bleach. 

Then, Herc's collar both chirps and vibrates. The vibration almost feels like knuckles brushing his throat; the sound echoes around nearby walls, and Herc shakes off, zips up, breathes out. Exits the bar by the back entrance. 

The alleyway is dark, lit from the ends by street advertisements, and has the high, sour smell of garbage going off. Down at the end of the alleyway is a woman who looks like she works in one of the nearby establishments. Heels, which she is very careful not to put in a puddle. A dress with something shiny sewn up the back. She is on her break, talking on her mobile device to someone at home. She has it cradled against her face and is speaking: different language than what most of the locals use, and but from the tender, gentle way she talks, Herc can hear how much she loves the person on the other side. Based on the tone of voice, a child, he guesses. Young. 

The alleyway is narrow. The woman stays bent over her device , talking, and Herc turns sideways, so that he won't bump into her or interrupt the call. She turns her face up a little to look at him, and Herc gets an impression of white makeup, dark eyes ringed with something that reflects light back at him. 

Herc finds what he wants on the next block. 

...

Hong Kong was Hong Kong was Hong Kong, inside the Towers and out. Real estate was precious, inside the Towers and out. There were buildings in the Slums dozens of stories high. Why not buildings dozens of stories deep? 

On the next block, Herc finds what he wants: a shopping mall, Hong Kong Slums-style, built downwards to minimize the footprint while simultaneously allowing for floor after floor of tiny storefronts and small, family run booths, packed right under green-white lights on a low ceiling. Food vendors next to clothing vendors next to household wares next to old women with sheets spread on the floor and factory seconds: barbershops and dentists and shoemakers and tailors. The crowds are shoulder to shoulder to shopping bag to elbow. On the stairs between the sixth and seventh floors, with a display of cheap, off-brand electronics to Herc's left and the back of a store selling women's swimsuits to his right, Herc's collar gives one convulsive last vibration to signal that he was passing out of continuous satellite tracking range. 

Herc takes another step down; the collar vibrates again, but more weakly. 

Just to be sure, Herc goes down until it has been two full levels since the collar even so much as vibrates: it goes still, but he keeps moving until satisfied that he is beyond range. 

Then, Herc finds an out-of-the-way eatery specializing in the food of Seoul Tower, flanked on the left by a shop selling cheap children's clothes and on the right by one selling plastic housewares -- Herc takes a seat as far back as he can. The storefronts are narrow, and the stores themselves are shallow. They bring him a food menu, but Herc orders off the liquor one: by signs and the little Cantonese that he has picked up, the waitress helps him figure out what he wants. They only have synthetic alcohol, but it'll do. 

Herc drinks quietly, methodically, watching people arrive, eat, leave, watching families pass. Groups. 

...

At the end of the busy period, Stacker goes to Taipei Tower for two days, then goes straight from there to the office for thirty-six hours. Then, he comes home and sleeps for two days straight. On the third day, Herc brings him breakfast in bed and kneels while Stacker eats: Stacker is hungry after having worked through dinner the night before, but remembers to tear his second piece of toast in half and feeds it to Herc. Then, he touches Herc's hair. He says that once the caterers have set up, Herc can have some time to himself, as long as he comes back when called for. Stacker is having people over. 

Casually, eyes on the tablet in his left hand, breakfast tray in his lap, Stacker says he won't need Herc. 

Herc --


	39. Chapter 39

One night, over the summer, Tamsin watches Stacker watching Mako and Herc. Mako and Stacker had been playing _go_ together, but halfway through the first game, Stacker steps away to take a conference call: brief, he says. He should be back shortly. In fact, it takes longer than he expects, and he comes back an hour and a half later, ready to apologize, but finds Mako absorbed in teaching Herc how to play with the black-and-white counters on the grid. When Stacker comes back into the room, Herc starts to shift away, back to the side, but Stacker sits down behind him. He puts his hand on Herc's shoulder. 

"Finish out the game," he says, and Herc and Mako both look at him. Mako, looking up from the board, Herc half-twisting around. 

After Mako is in bed, and Herc has done everything Stacker wants for the night, Tamsin and Stacker are alone in the great room. She leans back in the couch. Her leg aches. 

"What did Sasha say?" she asks. 

"They're being difficult. We won't be done before November."

Tamsin makes a disgusted noise, and Stacker sighs. Neither of them says anything further: rain on the windows, the sound when the wind drives it hard into the glass at one angle, then changes direction and drives the rain hard at another. 

After a while, Tamsin looks up. Stacker expects her to say something hard-headed about work, but then, he sees the expression and blinks. 

"So how long are you going to keep calling Herc your contractor?" 

The flat tone of her voice surprises him. 

"Herc's contract runs another six years. Give or take." 

Tamsin snorts. "That's not what I mean," she says. "You know it. I'm not stupid. You aren't either." 

Stacker looks at her, irritated at the sudden turn in the mood, ready to argue and have a fight, but Tamsin keeps her mouth shut, and instead, goes on looking at him, eyes flat, mouth flat, expression flat, glass of wine in her hand. They opened a bottle halfway through the evening; Tamsin had most of it, but Stacker, who doesn't care for white wine, poured a glass for himself, had some, then handed it down to Herc. Mako asked to try some, and --

...

Four years in, what does it mean for Herc to be _good_? More than physical obedience. 

After the busy period, Stacker tells Herc to take some time off. He has friends coming for dinner, and caterers will take care of it, so Herc can have the evening to himself. If he leaves, his collar will let him know when to come back. He isn't --

...

Nine levels down, Herc finds an out-of-the-way eatery specializing in the food of Seoul Tower, flanked on the left by a shop selling children's clothes and on the right by one selling plastic housewares -- Herc takes a seat as far back as he can, orders soju with the synthetic alcohol available in the Slums. After four years of finishing Stacker's drinks, he can feel the difference between real alcohol and synthetic. 

After two pours from the bottle of soju, Herc slows. 

He had been drinking other places, and knows how it builds: synthetic got you drunker faster than real. There had been a long walk between the first place and the second, but the soju is going into his blood quickly: the world swims. He isn't quite as steady on his feet as he'd like coming back from the john, and he doesn't want to be drunk enough to be incapacitated. He sits back down, heavily. The restaurant is family-run -- one waiter, one waitress, one woman working the till. A few people, Herc guesses, in the kitchen. Instead of having designated tables, the waiter and waitress work together. The waiter is clearing the table; the waitress is busy running an order back. The woman on the till comes when she sees Herc looking around, trying to find someone. 

She has little English. Herc has little Cantonese and none of the language from Seoul Tower. By hand signals and pointing, Herc manages to explain by hand-signals and English that he'd like some food. What kind of food? Whatever they have. He isn't hungry. Instead, he doesn't want to get too drunk. 

He wants to be just drunk enough to -- 

The restaurant is run, Herc guesses, by an extended family: the waiter and waitress look enough alike to be brother and sister. Herc thinks that the woman at the till isn't their mother, but instead an aunt. Older. At the counter in the front with her is a boy, maybe eleven years old: Herc thinks he may be the son of the waiter or the waitress, rather than the woman running the till . The boy is absorbed in watching an episode of a popular vidseries on his tablet. 

From advertisements, Herc knows that it is about a boy who builds robots because his parents are dead. 

...

Nine levels down, the shopping mall is still busy, but Herc turns off the main strip. Now, instead of a single, unending flow of people packed shoulder to shoulder, front to back, shuffling, he can make out individual groups. 

A family, father and mother and two children, out for dinner. A few steps behind them, another family, also out for dinner -- but this time, parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and a dozen children from teenagers on down, including the youngest, a baby young enough that the family could be out for what Herc understands to be the traditional local custom of a big celebration to mark its first full month of its life. Herc looks at the family and tries to guess who the parents are: an aunt, he thinks, is holding the baby. Is that the mother, wearing the agency collar and looking sleep-deprived? She has the same cheekbones as a few other people in the family, including the older woman. Is that her partner next to her, talking to the teenager? 

Young couples, hand in hand. Young Tower workers, some in collars, some not, all looking to spend their pay. Three women in their mid-forties, dressed-up in excess of the crowd standard, having a night out. Four girls who look young enough that they wouldn't be allowed out this late on a school night: one of them is still wearing her school skirt, and another has the sweater, crest and all, tied around her waist. 

Everyone is local or from the Towers on the Asian part of the Rim: during his first bottle of soju, Herc sees nobody who looks like him. 

After the busy period -- 

...

Is Herc angry? Is Herc upset? 

Four years ago, before signing, he would have laughed at the idea of being angry and upset and hurt that his client would, after being busy with work, told him he was _not needed_. 

...

"That's not what I mean. You know it." Tamsin says, and neither her tone nor the expression on her face are light or joking or even fractionally amused. "I'm not stupid. You aren't either." 

Stacker looks at her. He is annoyed more than angry. What does she mean? 

...

What Tamsin means, what Tamsin understands without being told or having seen directly, what Tamsin is trying to tell Stacker even though of all people in the world he --

...

After coming home from the mountains for the Double Ninth Festival in honor of the dead, Stacker is tired. So is Herc. They have dinner together, quietly, and then Stacker settles on the couch in the great room and puts the news feed on the vidscreen. He fixes himself a mug of tea, hot and sweet and milky, the way he grew up with it, and a plate of biscuits. Herc drowses, half-awake, half asleep, at ease with having his head on Stacker's thigh and his face turned into Stacker's stomach. 

Halfway through the night, Stacker touches Herc on the shoulder. Herc rolls onto his back and looks up into Stacker's face. 

"You should drink some water," Stacker says. "I should, too. It was hot outside."

Sleepily, Herc says _yes, sir_ shifts off: Stacker comes back with a pitcher of water and two glasses. 

At the end of the night, in the bathroom, Stacker talks to Herc about Luna. 

"Older sister, not younger. We grew up in the North Atlantic Slums. Luna was always a good student. Bright. Worked hard. She always wanted to be a pilot, and eventually got the chance. She used it to pay for school, and to take care of me when our parents couldn't do it anymore." Stacker has his back to Herc, his hands on the marble by the sink, but they can see each other in the mirror. Stacker looks at Herc. Herc looks back at Stacker. 

Then, quietly, Stacker says that when the Kaiju took Luna and Tamsin, he had been Tamsin's personal contractor. 

Suddenly wide awake, Herc blinks.

...

Does Stacker tell Herc everything about his past? No. On some level, Stacker believes there is not much to tell. 

...

Had Herc guessed that Stacker had been a contractor? No. Stacker has never brought it up. Tamsin has never mentioned it. Mako might not know. 

There are other things Herc could ask about. Safe things. Easy things. It would be natural to ask, for example, how much older than Stacker had Luna been? Alternatively, had she and Stacker been full brother and sister? He could ask Stacker whether his parents were still alive. Father? Mother? Stacker had never mentioned them, never called them with Herc waiting at his feet. Mako had never mentioned meeting them. Herc senses, at some level, that if either had been living, Stacker would have made an effort to make sure Mako knew them or at least knew of them. 

Consequently, Herc can guess they were both dead, but if that were the case, how? When? 

...

On the other hand, Herc is thirty-nine. He spent eighteen years in the Forces. He has seen a little of the world. When Stacker told him that the Kaiju had taken Luna and Tamsin, Herc guessed that the attack had been directed at Tamsin, and that the only way Luna would have survived for any length of time would have been if Tamsin had been willing to die to keep her alive. 

Further, on some level, after four years together, Herc -- 

...

When Stacker says that he had been Tamsin's contractor, Herc thinks it over. He puts it together with what he already knows about Tamsin and Stacker and Luna, and filters it through his own experience: Herc has seen a little of the world. He understands a little of how Jaeger Security works, recruiting heavily, as they did, from twenty-year finishers from the best units. 

"When the Kaiju came for Tamsin, did Jaeger Security think your sister helped them?"

Stacker's voice is quiet, too, and his face is steady in the glass. "Yes." 

"And you?"

"I had basic loyalty cues. Nothing heavy. Tamsin needed me at the negotiating table, so she wanted me sharp." Stacker shifts his eyes up, so that he and Herc are looking directly at each other again. 

"So yes," Herc says. 

"Yes." 

For a long time, neither of them says another word out loud. 

Herc watches Stacker in the mirror: the steady eyes, the line of his mouth. Herc has spent four years in Stacker's house, and he can call up, at will, Tamsin's face: sharp as a knife, with a long scar running to the side. He has seen her limp; he has seen her hand tremors. Herc remembers thinking, early in the contract, that Stacker and Tamsin had been lovers. After having seen more of them now, after hearing more of the story, he doesn't think that was ever the case. 

"I waited two days at home, not knowing what happened," Stacker says. "Then Jaeger Security came."

Stacker looks at the reflection of Herc. Herc looks at the reflection of Stacker. 

"For three days, I burned."

Stacker sounds -- and looks -- more tired than anything else. 

...

Still, Herc knows what _burning_ involves. He checks the corners of Stacker's eyes, the edges of Stacker's mouth. He watches, in the mirror, as Stacker wrings out the washcloth, bends down, and washes his face. Reaches towards the tap -- towards the mirror, away from Herc -- and turns on the water to rinse out the face cloth. Herc knows that drug-enhanced interrogation, administered intravenously, followed by specific physical stimuli, left characteristic scars on the hands and arms. On the torso. Stacker doesn't have them, but Herc doesn't doubt that interrogation happened, and -- 

....

"I waited two days," Stacker says. 

After the busy period, how much of what Herc does is consciously measured, specifically intended to hurt Stacker? 

...

At one point, interrogation scars ran up Stacker's arm, over his shoulder, down his left side. If Stacker had a choice, he would have kept them, career consequences be damned. He had been heartbroken when Tamsin told him, shaking, that she had seen Luna shot twice in the head. Plasma had taken off half her skull. What else did Stacker have to remember his sister by except the scars from being interrogated? Nevertheless, after Tamsin came home, she was in pain. Everything that reminded her of Luna hurt; everything that didn't remind her of Luna hurt more. The world had done something unforgivable to Tamsin, and --

...

"Mister?" There is a touch on his arm. 

Herc looks up, and the woman from the till is trying to wake him up. The restaurant is closing down for the night. Herc is the last one in the place, and Herc blinks and tries to assess how drunk he is. Synthetic alcohol tended to leave the bloodstream faster than the real stuff: a byproduct, Herc has heard, of the chemical process that makes it incapable of being lit on fire and used for a homemade bomb and rolled down stairwells on top of Security Forces coming up the way, or tossed in a riot. Few things widely available in the Slums could get through a powered up combat suit, but a well-placed bottle of high-proof alcohol with a burning rag stuffed down the front could. 

Herc blinks. 

Maybe he is too drunk. Maybe he is not drunk enough. The woman from the till brings him the bill, and Herc carefully, painstakingly, concentrating on each action settles his bill. She brings him a glass of water to drink, and Herc sees the boy from earlier asleep, head on his hands, tablet dark in front of him. 

"Thank you," he tells the woman when she brings his change back. 

Herc thinks about trying to walk back to Kowloon Tower, drunk as he is, but decides on taking one of the express buses back. After that, he has two airtrain rides and a transfer at Admiralty Tower. 

...

Stacker tells Herc about Luna. Herc already knows about Tamsin and Luna and the kidnapping. Stacker gives background and framework for understanding the empty grave at the top of the mountain, then goes further. He speaks to Herc directly about himself, and Herc asks, quietly, questions, Did Jaeger Security think that Luna worked with the Kaiju? Did Jaeger Security think Stacker had worked with the Kaiju? 

...

The evening after the Double Ninth Festival, Stacker talks about the past: Herc asks questions without using _sir_. 

Stacker doesn't give Herc formal permission to leave. Instead, the tone of his voice, the content of the discussion shifts things between them: Herc asks, quietly, if there is anything else, and Stacker shakes his head. Between Stacker reaching over for the toothbrush and putting toothpaste on it, Herc slips away: after that, Stacker finishes his routine alone. Finishes brushing his teeth. Rinses with mouthwash. Wipes at the corners of his mouth, then rubs lotion into his elbows and forearms and knees. He comes back out into the bedroom, gets into bed, picks up the tablet, checks to see if there are work messages. Part of him wants there to be messages from work, so he has a reason to get up. 

Instead, there are none. Stacker puts his mind to the job of concentrating on an article about -- 

A noise. 

Stacker looks up, and the bedroom door opens: Herc steps in. The light in the hallway is off, as is the overhead light in Stacker's bedroom. However, the bedside lamp is on: by its light, Stacker watches Herc cross the room, barefoot. When he comes close enough, Stacker can smell shower soap and shampoo. Herc didn't dry himself all the way before before getting dressed again, and his hair is wet at the base near the scalp. There are patches on his shirt, at the collarbones, a little over the shoulders, where Herc dressed before he had fully toweled himself dry. 

Tablet still in his lap, Stacker looks up. He breathes out. 

He makes eye contact with Herc. Herc pulls his shirt off over his head, then wordlessly, easily, goes down to his knees by the side of the bed. They make eye contact again, and when Stacker touches the side of Herc's face, feeling the stubble, Herc turns his face into Stacker's hand. Slowly, he closes his eyes. Using just hips lips, he kisses Stacker's palm: when Stacker lays two fingers on Herc's lower lip, Herc puts his hands behind his back, braces them up high so his chest is pushed out. 

Again, Stacker breathes out. 

He watches Herc consciously, deliberately, suck two fingers into his warm, carefully trained mouth. 

...

Stacker remembers being in the interview room and putting a face and body to the psych profile. 

_Why are you doing this?_

_I have a son. Bright kid._

...

Stacker remembers being on the other side of the glass, watching Herc put his thumbprint to the contract. 

Stacker remembers being outside by the landing pad for the airshuttle, seeing Herc for the first time with his collar and being offered, by the agency representative, opportunity to shock Herc to test out the collar. Just in case Stacker might have jitters: Stacker remembers the first time Herc came to the bedroom on his own and went down to his knees without being told. Stacker remembers standing in the jewelry store, admiring how good Herc looked in his new cuffs, giving himself until another thirty seconds before telling Herc to put them away so they could go home, then the jolt of surprise when Herc leaned forward, kissed his foot in a way that he had never been taught, and asked, in a form he had never been shown, if _sir_ would please fuck him. Stacker remembers the expression on Herc's face after the words came out of his mouth: Stacker remembers standing with Herc in the bathroom, talking to him about bringing Chuck home from the Academy.

Stacker breathes out and thinks about Herc standing behind, watching the mirror talk, for the first time in years, about old pain. Why bring it up in the normal course? But Herc had gone up to the mountain and carried the baskets and cushions and helped Tamsin down the steps. He had seen the end of the story; he deserved the beginning. 

...

When Stacker touches him, Herc turns his face into it. 

When Stacker kisses him, Herc opens his mouth. 

When Stacker reaches over to pull him into bed, Herc keeps his hands squared behind his back, but lets his weight come forward, so that Stacker can pull him down and into place. Herc had started to ease his track pants down, but stopped when Stacker kissed him. Stacker rolls Herc onto his back and gets them down, just above Herc's knees: Herc lifts his hips. For a moment, they both think Stacker might touch Herc on the side in a way they know will Herc turn onto his stomach and spread his legs as far as he can with his track pants down as far as Stacker has seen fit to pull them down, then present his ass, high and available, the way he has been taught. 

Instead, Stacker touches his right hand to Herc's face: just as easily, Herc kisses Stacker's fingers, still wet from having been inside Herc's mouth. 

Stacker pulls Herc's hands from out behind his back, and Herc puts his wrists up together on the headboard. His wrists are bare; he was naked underneath the shirt and track pants. The Jaeger cuffs are still in their box in the wardrobe. 

Stacker strips Herc the rest of the way and kicks Herc's track pants off the bed, then comes back up to kiss him: wrists still above his head, Herc kisses Stacker back. When Stacker touches the bars in Herc's nipples, Herc makes a noise in his throat. When Stacker runs his hands down Herc's sides, feeling the alternation between smooth skin and the prickle of body hair, he also feels the way Herc leans up into the touch. Herc is on his back, and at the base of his throat, there is a gap between the collar and his skin. Stacker touches two fingers to the space and finds just a trace of water from the shower. 

Hands still above his head, Stacker's weight on top of him, Stacker's hands stroking him, Herc closes his eyes and moves his dick against Stacker's hip. 

...

A memory Stacker does not specifically bring up, either with Herc in the bathroom or to Tamsin or anyone else, ever: he and Luna and Tamsin are in a hotel room in Seattle Tower after a successful deal. Stacker had done much of the leg work and almost all the negotiating, plus a few afternoons of showing up at the right place at the right time to make certain people uncomfortable. By now, everyone knows him: by now, the party is over, and the guests have left. Tamsin is tipsy enough to be demonstrative. She and Luna are inside, half-dancing, half-giggling. Luna has a ribbon from a gift stuck to the strap of her dress, and Tamsin's hair is mussed. 

Stacker is on the balcony outside, force field behind him because they are far up in the Tower. He can feel the electromagnetic field, prickling on the back of his neck. Behind, he knows, is the full span of the Slums outside Seattle, brightly lit close to the base of the Tower, fading into largely unelectrified darkness on the landward side, but with a steady pattern of lights on the ocean side: the great seaweed platforms and seagoing fleets of Seattle Tower, and he is outside, holding one of the hats from a Christmas cracker in his left hand. 

Inside, Luna has her right hand on Tamsin's shoulder. Tamsin smiles at her, and Luna smiles back. Tamsin says something Stacker chooses not read her lips for. Tamsin and Luna bring their faces together. To give them privacy, Stacker closes his eyes. He tilts his head back and lets himself have the moment. 

If he breathes deep, he can almost smell the ocean. 

If he breathes deep, he can barely feel his collar. 

...

Mako is at the hospital, wide-eyed and raw-throated from screaming for her dead mother: Stacker. 

Tamsin comes back from being kidnapped, in pain at every level: Stacker. 

Who does Stacker have? All those years, all that pain, all that grief, the loss of his father, then his mother, then years of hard loneliness away at school, and the horror of being asked, with level-four truth drugs burning in his veins and throat and permanently marking his skin, if he had plotted with his sister, his sister, _Luna_ \-- 

...

Who comforts the fixed point? Who stays with the last man standing? 

For a period in time, for Stacker, the answer is that he can trust his contractor: he already trusts Herc with Mako. What could be more important to him? 

...

During the summer, Mako has therapy appointments in Shenzhen Tower. Stacker offered to make time from his schedule to go with her, as he always had, but after discussion, they worked out a compromise where Herc would go with her: still, Stacker makes a point of finding time every night for them to talk, just the two of them. On days when she has been to therapy, Stacker makes a point of making sure she can talk about it if she wants, but will not push if she doesn't. 

One Tuesday in summer, he comes home late enough that Mako and Herc have had dinner. Herc clears the plates after Stacker has eaten and says, quietly, that Mako might be asleep: when Stacker goes by her door, he sees the light is still on, so he knocks. 

There is a moment. A few small noises. 

When Mako opens the door, she does, in fact, look tired. Her face is pale, and her eyes are swollen, but not red. She has been crying intensely, but not in the past few hours: Stacker knows his face shifts with concern. 

"All right?" he says quietly. 

"I'm fine, _sensei_. It was therapy earlier today." A pause. Mako's hand is still on the door, and she has not opened it any further: Stacker looks at her face carefully, trying to decide if she wants to spare him after a long day of working. Stacker looks past Mako and sees that she had, before he knocked, been curled up in bed with her tablet, possibly watching something soothing. 

Then, Mako turns her face up: she is taller than she used to be, but Stacker is still a good head and a half taller than her. "I'm glad you told Mr. Hansen to come with me to therapy. He is very kind."

Stacker's eyes are still on Mako. "He is. He cares about you a great deal." 

Mako nods, and she studies his face. Stacker lets her. 

"Would you like me to come in?" Stacker says, softly. 

After a moment of consideration, Mako shakes her head, small but firm. "When I am calmer," she says, sounding so adult that Stacker does, suddenly, feel tired: old. "I do not know if I can talk yet."

Abruptly, her eyes fill with tears, and Stacker knows that if he asks, she would open the door and let, to come in: they could sit on the floor and talk, like they used to. Stacker would like to hug her, like he did when she was younger. 

On the other hand, Mako would cry again before she was ready. 

Consequently, he touches her on the shoulder and tells her, gently, quietly, good night. 

...

Stacker remembers, a year or two in, before Mako went away to school, when she was attending one of the preparatory day schools in the City and generally doing well, except that she had gotten into a fight with one of the other students who had expressed, in her hearing pro-Kaiju opinions. 

"You have to let her cry it out," Tamsin says, coming back out into the great room and seeing Stacker half-stand, ready to go to Mako.

She sat down on the couch next to him, heavily. The lights in most of the house were off, including the one directly overhead, but there was enough light from the kitchen for them to see each other's faces. In particular, Tamsin can see Stacker's face at the idea of letting Mako be in pain alone. 

Tamsin leans forward and poured herself two generous fingers from the decanter on the table. "She needs the emotional release, Stacks, but is ashamed to do it in front of you. Consider it a downside of thinking that you walk on water."

"Unlike you."

"Unlike me. I wasn't the one who rescued her at the hospital. I didn't formally adopt her when her own family was so afraid of the Kaiju, they wouldn't let her attend her parents' funerals, let alone have her live with them." 

Stacker makes a face, not because what Tamsin says is untrue, but because it's beside the point. "So what did you say?"

Tamsin leans back, glass in hand. "I told her there was nothing she could ever do that would make either of us ever stop loving her."

A pause while Tamsin sips, then breathes out: real Scotch, with plenty of burn. "And then I told her that nothing she could ever do would be as bad as when somebody killed your father, and you went back the next day, stabbed him in the thigh, and tried to burn down a night club belonging to the Pak trading house."

"You knew about that?

"Your sister told me." Tamsin says, and the conversation goes silent: it happens whenever Luna comes up in conversation between them, not only the old, terrible memory of both of them having lost her, but what happened afterwards. After a while, Tamsin finally manages to look back up at her. Stacker is looking steadily at her. They both understand the debt that Tamsin owes him, and why, out of all people, she has a reason to be glad that Stacker Pentecost learned brutal lessons about the cost of revenge at the age of eleven. 

Eventually, Stacker breathes out. The memory of Tamsin waking up, screaming Luna's name, is a little too thick in the air: the memory of being in the house when Jaeger Security broke down the door is too present. 

He pours himself a good half-glass worth of the Scotch. 

After a long period where neither of them speaks, Tamsin says, quietly, not looking away from Stacker, glass of Scotch still in hand: "Luna was trying to explain why you couldn't get a job in a trading house the normal way. To be honest, Stacks, that was the first time I thought Luna's little brother might be hard enough for the work." 

Stacker lifts his eyebrows. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." 

Tamsin smiles, and after a moment, Stacker relaxes and laughs and actually has some of the Scotch in his hand. 

...

Who -- 

...

The world is difficult. Sumako and Masao are executed for having Jaeger ties and being on the wrong airtrain at the wrong time. Angela dies when she is in the wrong part of Sydney Tower at the wrong time. Tamsin manages to protect Luna during the initial smash-and-grab, then for two, almost three terrifying months while they are in Kaiju custody. Eventually, the Kaiju crack the tech required to get her nanobots out. Tamsin wakes up with Luna by her side, clutching her hand and trying to find the courage and means to commit suicide before Tamsin woke. They both know that Luna's time is limited: if the Kaiju are no longer worried about the nanobots, which might be programmed to kill Tamsin on detecting certain interrogation drugs or techniques, they could interrogate her in ways they could not before. They could use Luna against her in a way they could not before. Eventually, Tamsin would have to choose between betraying her house and keeping Luna alive. 

At midnight, Tamsin and Luna try to escape through the sewers, but are caught. 

Jaeger Security comes a week late. Once Tamsin is out of the hospital, she takes her own measure of revenge, first for having failed so signally during those three months, then for having tortured her personal contractor without the legal right. 

...

During hostilities, Stacker orders the firebombing of the worker dormitory for a Kaiju factory. He doesn't know, and doesn't care, that Sumako and Masao Mori had a daughter until he sees Mako standing in the hospital, blood smeared on her blue coat, chest heaving but no sounds coming out of her mouth. 

Herc has done hard things in his time in the Security Forces. What were the people in the Slums rioting for besides food and water and safety? When Herc led a team on patrol, did he see the people on the other side of his combat suit as actual humans with value and importance and people who loved them? He should have recognized what Scott was earlier. When push came to shove, he had a choice between betraying his personal code and giving the Forces at least an opportunity to make right some of what Scott had done. 

He took the beating and the discharge and personal code. Later, he sells himself in violation of that personal code in order to ensure the world will put a higher value on his son. He takes beatings. He learns to enjoy certain sexual acts. He knows this will happen: the theory of total power exchange is explained to him before he signs the contract, in detail, using specific lists aspects of Herc's life that Stacker Pentecost expects to control. Herc is told, even if he does not understand in practical application, the sorts of techniques Stacker will use. 

After four years of _selling_ when his son stops speaking to him, Herc's only emotional connection in the world is to Stacker Pentecost and people he knows through Stacker. Herc becomes willing to _give_ his body and soul over to Stacker.

Does it change anything else Herc has done, though? 

Does it change who Stacker is? 

...

Who comforts the fixed point? Stacker has come up the hard way in a world that rejects him not only because of the place of his origin, far from any Tower, but also for the color of his skin. There are few black men in any of the trading houses. There are even fewer in the Jaegers: Stacker has taken efforts to change that in the parts of the organization that he oversees, but in his memory, there is still an edge to old comments calling him _Tamsin Sevier's attack dog_. Consequently, there is an edge to Stacker's pleasure, too, in remembering the surprise on people's faces when they saw him walk into a negotiating room, collarless, shoulder to shoulder with Tamsin Sevier, back from the dead. He has had to be many times better. He has had to work many times harder; he has had to be, in fact, many times harder. 

...

How long has it been since Stacker let himself be as vulnerable as he was the night after the Double Ninth Festival, telling Herc about Luna and Tamsin and how he had, years ago, during all this, been a personal contractor? 

Stacker's vulnerability might not change who he and Herc are. It does not alter what they have done.

Nevertheless, it changes what happens between them: it alters the context. 

...

Two weeks into the contract, Herc speaks to Stacker inappropriately, and Stacker puts weights in Herc's hands and tells him to hold them out from his body. When Herc drops them, Stacker gives Herc his first beating of the contract: trousers down, bent over Stacker's desk, cane over bare legs. Subsequently, Herc is beaten for many things: for being late to kneel, for failing to track Stacker the way he is supposed to, for forgetting how he is supposed to undress Stacker. For failing to offer the back of his neck to Stacker's palm. 

Fourteen weeks into the contract, Herc moves when he isn't permitted to, and humiliates Stacker in front of people that Stacker dislikes. Stacker pulls Herc aside, overcomes his own anger and irritation, then relatively dispassionately spanks Herc over the sink with the door open. Herc is humiliated and frightened, but feels the wrongness of what he has done. He knows Stacker could have done worse to him. That night, after being dismissed, he comes back to Stacker. He knocks on the door, and when Stacker opens it, Herc goes to his knees, wordlessly. 

Four months in, Herc willfully disobeys because he refuses to carry out a training exercise where he kneels in the foyer when Stacker is away. 

The punishment for willful disobedience is hanging from a hook until sufficiently sorry, and then being beaten with a heavy paddle: the first time, Herc was given an option after he came down from the hook. What should he be beaten with? Instead of asking Stacker to use whatever was appropriate, Herc picked the paddle because everything else looked too frightening. Subsequently, Stacker continued to use the paddle. He never uses it, or the suspension cuffs, for any other reason: he wants Herc to know the consequences of willful disobedience. 

Four years later, Herc knows them down to his bones. 

...

After the busy period -- 

...

After the busy period, after Herc has been obedient and good and _giving_ for months and Stacker tells him, at the end that he isn't needed -- Herc walks through the front door five, almost six hours after the chime on his collar started sounding. 

Stacker is there, standing at the edge of where the foyer opens into the great room. The lights in the great room are on. The caterers have tidied away the dishes and plates and taken it away with them: as if the party had never occurred, except that Stacker's tablet is on the dining table. It displays Herc's vitals, showing that he was fine, not physically hurt. Blood pressure, heart rate, core temperature. In addition, the location function would have shown him walking away from Kowloon Tower, heading into the associated Slums, and then again, when he was making his way back by airtrain, unhurried. 

Herc guesses, too, that there was a large gap, a significant blank space for the time when he was very specifically, very intentionally too deep underground for the tracking satellites to follow. When he came up, did the collar release the stored data in a burst, showing that Herc had been fine during the whole time he was underground?

Stacker --

...

Stacker is already holding the suspension cuffs in his right hand. Above the table is the hook in the wall between the kitchen and the great room.

Defiance is in every line of Herc's body. Deliberately, Herc makes eye contact with Stacker. Still keeping eye contact, still technically tracking Stacker, Herc pulls off his shirt. Strips. 

Stacker usually puts him on the hook clothed, but some deep part of Herc senses it'll hurt more, for both of them, if he makes Stacker do it when --


	40. Chapter 40

First: a jacket that Stacker didn't bring home for Herc. It looks and moves and smells like real leather. Dark brown. Reasonable quality. Herc bought it from Stacker's cobbler, who has started branching out into other leather goods for favorite customers. 

Then: shoes. Then socks. 

Instead of folding his clothes, Herc tosses his coat on top of the shoe rack. He kicks off his shoes. He drops his socks onto the floor, still balled up from being pulled off his feet, then strips out of his shirt in a smooth motion that shows off the lines of his torso. The metal gleams on his chest, too. Once Herc is naked to the waist, Stacker realizes that Herc not only wore his hoops out, but the Jaeger cuffs, too: got them out of the cabinet at some point before or after Stacker told him to stay in his room, or to go out, but come back when his collar told him to. 

Put them on, put the catch on manually. Walked out of the house. Walked around the Slums with thousands of dollars in tech and Jaegers stamped on his wrists. 

Herc unclips them from his wrists, one by one, then tosses them past Stacker: he isn't throwing them at Stacker, but does send them, casually, in the general direction of the great room. Stacker turns his head and watches one go, then the other. The first hits the couch and bounces once before coming to a rest. The second hits the carpet with a thunk, then rolls under the coffee table before falling over.

Suspension cuffs still in hand, Stacker turns back to Herc. They make eye contact. 

Deliberately, Herc looks away. Then, he rolls his wrists. 

After he makes his point, he starts to strip out of his jeans. 

...

Leather jacket, shirt, jeans, but no underwear. Herc went out without any, so when he undoes the top button on his fly, undoes the zip fastener, and eases the waist down, he shows bare skin. Halfway through getting his jeans off, though, he bends down. Wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs: Herc balances a hand against the wall and undoes the manual catch on the left cuff first, then shifts his hand and balance and undoes the right. 

He drops the ankle on the tile floor, one on the tile floor to the umbrella stand, one the doormat next to one of Stacker's shoes. 

The insides of the cuffs are sized and padded for comfort, but there are red marks on Herc's left wrist and right ankle: hours of wear. Hours of walking and standing and moving about first the Slums, then the Boneslums. Sweating into them. Wearing them on the long, circuitous route he took back back home, even after coming out from the underground retail area, with the collar re-establishing a connection to the satellites and relaying every step: direction, velocity, steady heartbeat and calm vitals. 

He looks at Stacker. Stacker looks back at him. Eye to eye, face to face. 

Stacker walks three steps over to the dining table and puts the cuffs down onto the wood. 

Then, he turns. 

Without looking at Herc again, Stacker walks away, out of the great room, down the hall, and slams a door, hard enough to rattle. 

...

After four years under contract, Herc judges, based on the sound, that Stacker went into his bedroom, not the study: Herc understands he might have been met at the exit platform for the airtrain and taken for screening by Jaeger Security. It would have been reasonable. Relations with the Kaiju were nominally peaceful, but suicide bombing Stacker Pentecost's personal residence would be an opening. Alternatively, there were trading houses on the rise, or private operatives seeking profit through a hostage situation. At each point, he might have been stopped, had samples taken: hair and blood and spit and more. Sustained interrogation. As far as Stacker was willing to authorize, and possibly further, depending on what they suspected.

At the exit platform for the airtrain. At the screening station for entry to the Tower. At the access point to the private elevator. At the exit of the private elevator, next to the private landing pad, within sight of the front door. He had gone missing for hours, out of collar and tracking range. Who had he talked to? What had he done, or what had been done to him? 

Nevertheless: Herc expected to come through the door. Herc expected for Stacker to meet him at the front door, in the great room, without the reinforced, blast-proof door to the panic room between them. 

Stacker turns. Stacker walks away without looking at Herc again.

After a period, sixty heartbeats, a hundred and twenty, two hundred, Herc walks over to the dining table. He puts the cuffs on himself, best as he can manage. Left first, then right. The suspension cuffs wrap over the base of the thumb and have a broad strip of leather running over the palm and connecting to steel loops. Once he has the left on, Herc can't fully tighten the straps on the right, but lays his hand on the table and does the best that he can with his teeth. There is spit on the leather, two drops on the wood. He wipes them off on his body. 

Then, he sits down underneath the hook set in the wall. He adjusts the collar around his neck. The floor is cold, and the spots on his bare bicep, wet from wiping his spit off the leather and the wood, dry. 

Herc waits.

Eventually, the room goes dark.


	41. Chapter 41

The floor is cold. Herc is too uncomfortable to sleep, but drifts along in a mixed, bleary state. There are dreams, but at a great distance. His brain passes through impressions of earlier in the evening, but nothing clear: nothing fixed. At one point, he wakes and realizes that Stacker has come back into the great room. It must be hours later, and light is starting to come into the great room through the skylights. The synthetic liquor is almost gone from his system. His tongue feels thick, and the roof of his mouth dry. His body is stiff, both from the floor and because Herc is closer to forty than thirty. 

How many hours has he been on the floor? 

Herc realizes that he is looking at Stacker's legs.

...

He recognizes the dark gray track pants and can see the bottom edge of the white undershirt Stacker must have been sleeping in. When he further looks up, Stacker's face is in shadow: when Herc looks up, Stacker bends down. He puts a hand, broad and familiar, shockingly warm, on Herc's left bicep. Then, gently, he moves his hand to Herc's cheek. 

Another moment, and he seems, almost, about to say something. 

To make sure he doesn't, Herc turns his face away. 

...

In fact, he closes his eyes and pulls his shoulder away. In fact, he shifts his whole body away. He feels his face move, but is too tired, too stiff, still half-asleep to specifically know what it does. Whatever the expression, Stacker abruptly pulls back. Quickly stands up. 

Herc keeps his eyes closed. He goes back to letting himself drift. 

At some point -- 

.... 

At some point, Stacker comes back. Herc is more deeply asleep and only half awake when fingers go around his collar. He has a sensation of being dragged, of being lifted to his feet, of being pushed. Herc opens his eyes and sees the dining room table coming up at him, so he puts his hands in front of him. He had forgotten about the suspension cuffs. 

Breath knocked out of him, hands smarting, he turns his head to the right and sees Stacker, still wearing the gray track pants and white shirt. In his right hand, he has the heavy punishment paddle, and Herc closes his eyes in relief. 

Despite the pain in his hands from coming down hard on them, he breathes in, long and slow. 

He breathes out again when he hears Stacker step behind him. 

Herc doesn't know whether he says it out loud, or only thinks: _Come on, if you're man enough._

Then, he settles against the table. Puts his arms underneath him. His feet touch the ground, and Herc shifts his weight to them. He is laid out against the side, not close enough to either side for him to brace one of his knees against a leg of the table, and there is a moment. Hesitation. Herc can feel it in the air, and he thinks he hasn't said the words out loud, so he gets spit in his mouth and says them out loud for certain. 

_Come on, if you're --_

Before he finishes, a hand shoving him down on the table. Movement of air. 

Sound: pain that goes to the bone and makes the world go pale at the edges. 

...

While -- 

...

Pain wipes away shame, distracts from guilt. Herc has a long history with both, and he remembers the first beating he got from Stacker in the study, with the dropped weights.

_When was the last time you had a beating?_

_Bar fight._

It had been true for certain values of true. Herc has used pain, is familiar with using the idea of what he _deserved_ before.

...

Herc could have picked a fight a half-dozen times while outside. Instead, he shows his identcard to Tower security at the checkpoints. He walks past Tower and Jaeger and Kaiju security with stun batons. Ignores a man pushing past him in the crowd. Pretends not to notice a drink half-spilled on him. Instead, gets half-drunk at a quiet family establishment. Ignores his collar for hours, then takes the long way home, quietly, hands in his lap. 

When did he start to think of Stacker's penthouse as _home_? When did he want a beating specifically from Stacker?

Stacker stopped buzzing his collar halfway through the trip home. Herc doesn't have words, but on stepping through the door and seeing Stacker's face, Herc thinks he might have smiled. 

...

Herc starts by trying not to make noise: rebellion against what he knows Stacker trained him to do, and also insurance that Stacker stays angry enough to beat him. 

At the same time, he is tired. He is chilled and has been lying for hours, naked, on a cold floor. He is closer to his limits than otherwise. Plus, Stacker doesn't break the blows into sets. Stacker doesn't check Herc's hands. Asking if Herc wants more is part of the particular, controlled beatings that have, at this point, become foreplay for both of them: judging how much more Herc can or should take is part of reasoned, careful punishment. 

For the first time, Stacker is hitting him as hard as he can without counting how many he lands.

Herc remembers that when coming home and seeing Stacker standing there, cuffs in hand -- 

...

Pain wipes away shame, distracts from guilt. Herc has a long history with all of the above. 

He remembers the first beating he got from Stacker in the study, with the dropped weights. Herc has gotten beatings before, and he remembers looking at his legs afterwards in the mirror and seeing the neatly spaced marks: he realizes that Stacker counted and marked and judged. Stacker was controlled enough to pull Herc off his dick halfway through a blowjob and hold him an arm's length away. Stacker believed that -- 

... 

Herc starts silent, but when the pain is too much, he cries out. Stacker keeps on hitting. Herc starts to cry out on every other blow. Stacker keeps on hitting him, without measurably slowing or softening the blows. Herc tries to get up from the table; Stacker shoves his shoulders back down; when Herc tries to wriggle away, Stacker drags him back into place by the collar. 

When Herc tries to get off the table a second time, Stacker hits him hard enough that Herc screams. 

Stacker doesn't stop.

...

Years before, the first time Herc willfully disobeyed, and Stacker put him up on wall. After Herc apologized, Stacker took him down and gave him three choices: single tail, cane, or paddle. Herc picked the paddle, then learned later that the correct answer would have been to beg Stacker to use whatever he wanted. 

... 

_I waited two days at home, not knowing what happened,_ Stacker tells Herc, honestly believing that he is more tired than hurt. Nevertheless, afterwards, he lies in bed, reading the same sentence three, four, six, eight times until Herc comes back into the room. 

Herc takes his shirt off. Wordlessly, calmly, he goes to his knees by the wide of the bed, then turns his face up to Stacker. 

How many hours does it take Herc to come home, smiling? 

...

Three hours in, and a wordless offer: come to bed. 

In another moment, Stacker would have said the words out loud, but Herc turns his face away, and -- 

...

Stacker comes back with the heavy, punishment paddle. Stacker drags Herc up on the table, and hits Herc until his arm is tired and he is out of breath. Again and again and again: past the crying, past the sobbing, into the screaming. He didn't count, so he doesn't know how many times. Now, the only sounds in the room are his ragged breathing and low noises from Herc, who is still face-down on the table, on his stomach. Every time Herc's shoulders move, he whimpers. He tries to move his legs, and makes a broken noise that starts in the throat because he is in pain. 

The household ventilation system kicks on, and Stacker throws the paddle away. It slides and spins and ends up near the left Jaeger wrist cuff. 

This time, when the door slams, it's the front door: shortly afterwards, the afterburners on the aircar.

...

"How'd you leave things?"

Stacker makes a face, and he looks towards the wall. Tamsin's expression doesn't change. 

Half-eaten breakfast lies between them, and Tamsin has at least another half-dozen pills to wash down. 

Tamsin goes on looking at Stacker. 

"What do you think?" he says finally. 

"Are you asking for advice?" 

"Yes."

"Really asking?" 

"Yes."

Tamsin leans back. 

"Did you call Jaeger Security?"

"No."

Tamsin lifts her eyebrows. "Did you get him screened at all?"

"No."

"Are you going to?"

Stacker shakes his head, then looks up. The two of them are eye to eye, face to face. There is a space between them, and Tamsin looks at Stacker. He looks back at her. His mouth tightens, then goes steady because the real question is between them now. Tamsin's eyes move over his face, his shoulders, his hands, but Stacker's eyes stay on her face. 

As it always does, the past lies vividly between them: not behind, not ahead, but between. Never forgiven, never forgotten. Only lived with. 

Tamsin wears a white sleeping top and white sleeping trousers; laid over the back of her chair is a familiar yellow silk dressing gown stitched with cranes flying past the moon. Stacker is still wearing the undershirt and track pants he wore when he left home. 

...

"So how long are you going to keep calling Herc your contractor?" 

Stacker looked at her. Tamsin looked back at him. 

...

"Walk away," Tamsin says, finally. "Buy out the term, if you have to. Never see him again." 

Her eyes are steady. Her face is steady. Her voice is steady. Stacker doesn't say anything back, and for a long time, he doesn't move, either. 

Finally: "You didn't." 

"I should have." 

It isn't the first time she has said it to him, but it's been years since they were this blunt with each other: they both know what she means. They both know the promises that she broke, and the ones Stacker broke tonight. Tamsin is Stacker's friend, not his contractor's. 

A long, long moment, and the past continues to lie between them: Stacker could say that he came back eventually, but he doesn't. They both know that in a better, easier world, he wouldn't have. 

Tamsin is leaning back against her chair. She could lean forward, but she doesn't. 

Instead, she looks at him. He looks back at her. 

...

Stacker comes back when the sky is cloudy, but there is natural light. He moves past the coat rack, dropped where Herc put them. He goes down into the great room, then left to the dining table. 

Herc left his clothes on the floor in the foyer. Bodily, he is close to where Stacker left him: on his side, on the floor next to the table. His breathing is shallow; he is naked below the waist, and his hands are still in the cuffs. Carefully, Stacker gets down on the floor. Carefully, Stacker touches his palm to Herc's cheek. Does Herc know he is there? Once Stacker touches him, Herc does: under Stacker's hand, Herc closes his eyes. Herc makes a noise that comes out of his throat and chest and mouth at the same time, then pulls himself, with some difficulty, into a position where he can press his face, rough with stubble, into Stacker's palm. Herc is breathing rapidly. Based on read-outs from the collar that he checked in the aircar on the way back, Stacker knows: Herc isn't in actual, physical shock, but he is clearly, obviously, shaking. He is not entirely steady. 

On the other hand, once his face is pressed against Stacker, Herc doesn't seem to want to move. 

Eventually, Herc opens his eyes. Bruises are starting to come up on his thighs and ass: just the beginnings of color, and the outlines of the paddle. The paddle itself is on the floor where Stacker threw it next to the Jaeger cuffs. 

Carefully, deliberately, stiff with pain, Herc presses his mouth to Stacker's feet, left first, then right. 

...

 _Let go,_ Tamsin tells Stacker. 

_How long are you going to keep calling him your contractor_ , Tamsin says. 

She always meant it as a warning.


	42. Chapter 42

Years before, a curving, white-walled room. Two people. 

Stacker asks Tamsin to end his contract, and she refuses. He tries to make her look at the fresh scars on his body from Jaeger Security interrogating him: he reminds Tamsin that Luna died for her. Tears running down her cheeks, Tamsin turns away. Stacker comes around the desk and reminds her that when they were negotiating terms, Tamsin promised. If he ever asked, she would end his contract. She wouldn't hold him if he wanted to go. She promised. 

Stacker and Tamsin are separated by an arms' length. Less. 

Tamsin's face is the color of ash, and she repeats what she said before: she can't let go. He is all she has left of Luna. She needs him. Stacker looks at her for a long, long moment. She turns away a second time, ashamed, but also unwilling to do what she promised that she would do: what she promised Luna she would do. 

After another long, long moment where he stares at her back, disbelieving, Stacker deliberately sweeps his arm across the desk. 

Tamsin triggers his collar. 

Years later, an agency representative offers Stacker the opportunity to test-drive the shock function on his new contractor's collar.


	43. Chapter 43

Years later, on the gravel pathway outside the house, Herc carries a duffel bag. Stacker wears a pale blue shirt and navy slacks.

Halfway down the path, Herc stops. Duffel bag in hand, gravel under his shoes, he turns round, back toward the house. He doesn't go closer, doesn't make any other sudden movements, but the agency security guard puts a hand on her stun baton and watches with sharpened interest. Suddenly concerned, the agency representative follows Herc's eyes to Stacker, and follows Stacker's eyes back to Herc.

A long moment.

Herc looks at Stacker. Stacker looks back at him.

A gray aircar lifts into a gray sky. 


	44. Chapter 44

Years before, one person makes an offer. 

...

Years later, another person makes another offer. 

From personal experience, he understands how the system invites abuse. In the following years, he has seen economic exploitation, outright deception, unequal bargaining power, contracts entered into in ignorance. A contract calling for services of one kind, but the client enforcing a different regime. 

With him, the nature of the arrangement will be clear from the very beginning. There will be informed acceptance. His contractor will not misapprehend on the nature of his, her, or their service, or the limits of it. Upon hearing this, the agency hesitates. Even if Stacker is paying _above market_ because he intends to pay what the service will be worth to him, not what, the agency explains, he could get away with paying -- they also believe that _alternative avenues_ are more likely to result in a satisfactory experience for him. Nevertheless, an expensive attorney insists, and Herc ends up in a small room, reviewing a copy of his profile mapped onto both Stacker's general sexual profile and the reassessment carried out after meeting: specifically what the potential client would like to do to him. 

The agency representative asks. Is Herc familiar with _total power exchange_ as a practice? On a scale of one through ten, with one being "completely unfamiliar" and ten being "regular and extensive practice," how would he rate his experience of _sexualized humiliation_? 

Herc looks down at the screen, showing the exhaustive side-by-side lists, color-coded and cross-referenced. The representative explains that if he prefers, Herc can touch the screen and read the same information the representative would present orally. He can also view a short vid depicting any of the practices. 

How many questions does he ask? Does he tap to bring up any definitions? 

After four minutes and eighteen seconds, Herc brings the discussion to a close. He takes the longest term that Stacker offers. He specifically declines the option for contractor-initiated termination: in return, the agency will reduce its percentage of his fees. A small, but meaningful amount, particularly spread over ten years at the rate that Stacker Pentecost proposes to pay. 

...

Ask yourself, and even with the benefit of hindsight. At what point, in this universe, would Herc Hansen have used it? 

...

Years later, Herc wakes, blinking. He is in his quarters, lying in bed. There are sheets under his hands, and a glass of water on the bedside table, along with three white tablets of anti-inflammatories, and two pale yellow tablets of painkillers. He has been carefully tucked between the sheets, and his clothes laid over the back of the desk chair: shirt, trousers, underwear, leather jacket. Shoes lined up with socks in them. A clean white t-shirt, soft gray track pants folded on the seat of the desk chair. 

He sits up and swallows the pills; the water is room temperature. Every part of his body is stiff. Every time he moves, he finds a new, additional part of his body that is in pain. 

In silence, Herc considers his room. The clothes. His shoes. He makes himself breathe slowly, through the pain. The door is half-open, half-closed. Herc understands the message: he is neither locked into his room, nor required to come out. His choice. Herc looks at the door way for a moment, and gives the pills more time to take effect. 

Then: the tile floor is cool under his feet. Then: the walls are familiar beneath his hands. In the foyer, there is a scroll showing a crane in flight. In the hallway, the sky blue silk shot through with gold thread hangs behind glass. 

Herc moves through to the study, where the door is half-open, half-closed. Stacker is sitting at his desk, his back to the door.


	45. Chapter 45

Years later, Chuck visits. He comes to Hong Kong a few times a year for work, so they make plans for lunch. At the last moment, thirty seconds away from walking out the front door of Herc's apartment, a call comes through. Chuck is pulled into a video meeting, which he takes in the spare bedroom, then comes out forty-five minutes later, red-faced and angry. Cursing. He has two or three hours of emergency management before he can go anywhere: he knows his father has been looking forward to this. 

Herc makes two plates to eat on the couch. Two glasses of water. 

An hour in, Chuck puts down his headset and rubs behind his ears. He looks over at his father, sitting four feet away. Long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up. In his own home, calmly watching air traffic through the outside-facing window in a Tower. 

...

Years later, Herc and Tendo sit in a recreation area and drink beer. Spectrum-adjusted light gives everything a hazy, late-afternoon glow; in the middle distance, on green grass, a group plays cricket. Tendo sighs and leans back. 

"Do you miss the Forces?" 

Herc considers. "Sometimes. Once in a while. I used to want it bad." He looks down at the plastic table between them: he and Tendo are sitting at the edge of an outdoor cafe area in the bar. The beers are low-quality and significantly overpriced, but the view is nice, and they've been catching up. Tendo's son just turned six. Allison got promoted. Chuck finished uni, and is in Jakarta Tower on a six-month internship. Tendo is still wearing his rosary. 

"Been a long time since I wore a combat suit," Herc says. 

"Me too," Tendo says back, and Herc gives him a look over the table. They both laugh, because they both remember when Tendo had been in one: _not good_ doesn't adequately capture how bad Tendo had been as a trainee, lighting up the boards on Tech and Mission Logistics, but hopeless in the field. Barely scraping through his probation, getting through mostly on the grace of having an experienced squad lieutenant whose name rhymed with _Fercules Fansen_ who had enough credit with the higher-ups to convince them to take the long view of things. 

"The other day," Herc says, after a moment, when Tendo is still grinning at the memory, "I walked by a half-squad in helmets and light suits on entry duty."

The tone isn't what Tendo expects.

Herc fixes his eyes on the cricket players, far off enough that their faces can't be seen, but close enough so that shouts come drifting over the grass. 

"They stopped an older woman whose ident came back as unreadable," Herc says. "So they had to call it in. Rush hour, so it took a while to come back. She got agitated. Started saying she was going to be late, saying she had to get back. She had bags like she'd been out shopping, and one of the kids put his hand on his stun-stick. I counted. One bar, two bars, three bars. He had his thumb up, ready to go for four." 

Tendo asks: "Were they trainees?" 

Herc shakes his head, but says nothing out loud, so Tendo lets it sit. Out on the field, a cricket player goes back, back, back for the ball, but misses, and has to catch it on the bounce. 

"The double-check came through just in time," Herc says, finally. "I kept thinking, the whole time, what if the kid hit her? What if the rest of the squad jumped in? Two bars would burn her. Three bars might stop her heart. Four probably would. I could hear the battery charging up, and so could the old lady. She started to cry."

The cricket players are arguing about something. 

"You remember Manila?" 

Tendo looks at Herc over the table. 

"You were right about the Forces," Herc says, finally, quietly. "It didn't start or end with Scott." 

...

Immediately after his ten years are over, Herc is taken back to the agency to sign waivers and have medical exams. Then, they put him out on the curb: he stands with his duffel bag and looks at the people passing back and forth, at the traffic into the agency and back out. Staff. Would-be contractors. A messenger wearing a blue uniform and matching contractor collar. There are no clients at this entrance. 

Herc breathes in deeply, then makes his way to the closest airtrain station. 

... 

Herc buys a house, two bedrooms on a low floor in a lesser Tower, but with a significant outside-facing window and a resident owner's access to the recreational and gym facilities. Herc finds furniture, and reconnects with old friends. He spends his money practically, sensibly, reasonably. Chuck comes through Hong Kong two or three times a year. 

An hour in, Chuck puts down his headset, rubbing behind his ears. He stretches, then looks over at his father. He is about to say something, suggest that his father pick a place for dinner. Then, he stops, abruptly and completely angry: his father is sitting four feet away, wearing a long-sleeved shirt shirt with the sleeves pushed up and tailored slacks, the same clothes that he had as a contractor. The vid screen isn't on. Herc doesn't have a tablet in his lap: he has been quietly, patiently, wordlessly looking through the outside-facing window for an hour, hands on his knees. 

He has, after all, experience with being patient while set aside.


	46. Chapter 46

Six months after the end of the contract, Herc goes to a doctor for a follow-up. New guy, non-Agency, non-local. More gray in his hair than Herc, a specialist in joint replacement surgery. After the scans are done, the doctor pulls the screen down and shows Herc footage of his left, then his right knees -- the patella, the bursa, the joint itself moving well and cleanly. 

"No clicking? Pressure? Pain?" 

Herc shakes his head, and the doctor nods. 

"Lovely work," he says, still studying the footage. "Neotitanium bearings, tidy protein re-synthesis. I can't do work this nice. Who did it?" Without waiting for Herc to answer, the doctor flips back, scans, and whistles. "I know her. She does beautiful work -- which she should, working out of Shenzhen Tower."

The doctor flips forward a few screens. "And both knees paid for by the client." 

The doctor looks up. Pleasantly, smiling, "Made out alright, didn't you?" 

...

Two years after the end of the contract, Herc is back for his final medical check up, scheduled to coincide with the end of his legal ability to sue: there are waivers and forms and sheets. Herc signs to acknowledge that except as specified in Section 2C or otherwise provided by law, this will be his last opportunity to file an acute injury medical claim on his contract before the statute of limitations expires. Herc initials to indicate he understands that he would have continuing health care through the extension policy. Herc presses his thumb to the screen to give his permission for the agency to retain a physical index taken at this checkup as a baseline for any future _coverage dispute_.

This time, the doctor is familiar: Herc smiles on seeing Dr. Lee. She smiles back. They laugh about the new wallpaper in the waiting room while she skims through his bloodwork, his hormone levels, all the other parts of his report, then she turns to him. Herc is sitting on the examination bench. She is on a small, swivelling wheeled stool. 

"How are the knees holding up?" 

"Fine. They don't hurt." 

"No redness? No inflammation?" Herc shakes his head. "If they're ever get hot and puffy," she says, "and extended icing doesn't help, that's a red flag. It's a sign the protein sheathing is starting to fail, and they need to be redone."

"Haven't noticed it so far." 

"Do you mind if I -- ?"

Herc shakes his head, and she slides the chair close, so that she can gently taking each knee in her hands and running her fingers over the edge of the patella. Checks to see if the patella stays in place. Slides her hand underneath the knee to see if she can feel where flesh meets neotitanium underneath his skin. 

She straightens. "Had it done during the contract?"

"Yes."

"But not the left shoulder." 

"It didn't hurt that much." 

Dr. Lee looks at Herc, long and level. He looks back at her. She is still wearing her examination gloves, and they both remember the conversation where she showed him what his knees looked like: they talked about happened to his shoulders, what might happen down the line with his back. Eighteen years in the Forces left marks. Ten years of a personal services contract left marks.

"How are you adjusting?" 

Herc shrugs. "Fine." 

"What's your day like?" 

"Wake up. Walk around. Go to the gym." He looks back at her, mouth turned down a little, because he knows why she's asking. She knows that he knows, too. 

"Talk to your son?"

"He's starting a new job in Jakarta Tower. He's busy." 

"You should get busy," she says, bluntly. "Talk to people. Make some friends. Get involved with your neighbors."

Herc breathes in, and Dr. Lee leans against the side of the work station. 

"Do you think about going back?"

Herc looks at her, and she considers his face: the expression on his eyes, the angle of his mouth. He has been her patient, on and off, for more than decade. 

"Listen," Dr. Lee says. "I know. You didn't have it as hard as some. But it still meant something. It still happened. There are groups where you can talk about it -- other former contractors who had all kinds of jobs. Or you can go to job-specific ones. In fact, with your money, you can afford private sessions for a long time and not even notice." 

On two separate slips, she writes contact information down: on the first, the information of two private therapists who specialize in ex-contractors. She puts a mark by the one who does particular work with contracts like his. On the second, because she knows he might half-intentionally lose the first slip, she writes, contact information for a financial planner who specializes in ex-contractors who have significant assets. She tells him that she'll send him a message through the agency system with all three numbers. 

"This will be the last time we see each other," she says, at the end of the visit. "My transfer kicks in next week -- I have grandkids in Honolulu Tower."

She holds her hand out to him: small, medium-brown, nails trimmed short. 

"Take care of yourself, Herc," she says, more gently than he expects. 

...

Does he? By all accounts, yes. 

At forty-five, Herc is still handsome. Gray looks good in his hair; he hasn't started drinking again. He hasn't started trying to get into bar fights again: he left those two bad habits firmly left behind. He lives quietly, buys an apartment in the mid-levels of a safe but unfashionable Tower, spends hours at the gym, talks to his son once or twice a month. His primary luxuries are keeping a few of the same services from his contract -- same cobbler, same food delivery service, though only once a day. Small things. Familiar things. 

...

After Dr. Lee tells him to, he makes an effort to socialize with his neighbors. Over a decade, he has picked up a basic knowledge of the main local dialect; further, most people living in a Tower like this are comfortable, prosperous, educated, come from all over the world to live and work in the only city with so many Towers and are able to speak the language of business. Consequently, when the typhoons come, Herc knocks on the door of an older couple and asks if he can get the shutters down for them. One afternoon, a young mother who lives on his floor is trying to wrangle two young children and a baby and a diaper bag and groceries, and Herc snags the baby just in time to keep her from crawling back the open elevator. Still carrying the baby under one arm, he takes three of the four bags in the other arm. 

To the pass the time while she fumbles with the door, he makes a face down at the four year old, who makes one back at him. 

The seven year old asks if he has ever been to space, and Herc shakes his head. He explains soberly that the closest he's come is in an airshuttle that hit low atmo while doing a jump between Frisco Tower and Central Tower. The seven year old opens her eyes wide at the idea of even getting to be in low atmo. 

"I was in the Security Forces," Herc says, smiling at her. "And then I worked for someone who traveled. When he went across the ocean, he went that way."

...

For the Double-Fifth holiday, the mother brings him some sticky rice dumplings. 

Her newly-single sister-in-law goes over to pick up the clean dish. 

...

The apartment, the sister-in-law reports, is clean. 

It looks like he just moved in. How long has he been living there? Two years? It doesn't seem like it. Generous two bedroom unit. Enormous window in his living room. She asked about the two pictures that he had on the built-in ledge in front of it: an Asian girl, maybe Japanese or Korean, and a white kid. He said the boy was his son. The girl was somebody he used to take care of. They were both dressed the same, black graduation cap and gown, even though they were in different pictures, and there was a row of tiny, lovely little silver figurines of Towers running between them. He said they were presents from _Miss Mori_ , who sent them every Christmas.

Then, he gave her the dish.

Then, she came back. 

...

In the morning, Herc wakes. 

He washes his face, brushes his teeth, picks up his gym bag, laces his gym shoes, walks down the hall and takes the elevator fourteen floors to the gym, eating a protein bar along the way. He throws the wrapper on the protein bar away at the door; he makes sure to stay hydrated. He works out; he waves to the person at the front desk, nods to the morning regulars. 

He goes home; he showers; he cracks open a lunch container from the meal delivery service. 

Then: keeping the house clean, making sure bills are paid, checking his mail, putting in the next week's food order. Laundry. 

In the afternoon, three times a week, he goes swimming. Aquatic exercise is easier on his knees and bad shoulder. Other days of the week, he goes for long walks through the Towers. Sometimes, he runs errands. Other times, he walks purely to see a new part of the city. Usually, he eats dinner out: then home and the pause in front of the door before touching his palm to the reader. The door opens, and his apartment stretches in front of him, with the broad, dark window looking out. Herc knows the yellow rectangle of light from the hallway, the feel of tile against his feet once his shoes are off, six steps to the couch. Without words, he packs his gym bag for the next day, makes sure he has full water bottles chilling in the fridge, lays out the protein bar for the morning, and sits down to watch a program or two on the vidscreen. 

Does he fall asleep on the couch? Does he go to his bedroom? 

How many nights a week does he wake from fitful, disturbed sleep -- on his stomach, one hand over the back of his neck, fingers and knees spread?

...

Four months out of his contract, Herc comes to a corridor in Kowloon Tower, full of sex shops. He hesitates at the corner. There are lights. There are speakers playing enticements. He considers walking on: it would be probably for the best. But what does he have waiting for him? Dinner someplace he'll never eat again? So he puts his hands in his pockets, goes down the corridor, and picks a store at random. 

The blacked-out doors slide open: the inside is brightly lit and mostly pink. It sells ticklers with feathers at the end, blindfolds with cheap elastic. There is a wall of vibrators in pastel colors. Directly in front of the doorway, a life-size plastic figurine of a woman with pink hair and improbable proportions. She wears bunny ears and little else. 

Herc turns around and walks out. 

... 

Nine months out of his contract, Herc finds, a store whose bags Stacker brought home A discreet name plate tucked between boutiques selling luxury leather goods and high fashion: again,Herc hesitates. He might might have remembered incorrectly. But the name is familiar. So is the lettering. The storefront is the same color as the bags he remembers. 

So he pauses. The door is black; the nameplate is well-polished.

Then, he puts his hand on the door and pushes. 

...

What does he find? A privacy curtain immediately through the door. Once through it, a long, narrow store with black walls and recessed shelves with lighting. The floor is blonde wood; running down the middle is a line of low, black couches. A young white woman in a good gray suit stands at what Herc guesses is the register. She looks up, makes eye contact, smiles, goes back to her work. 

Herc breathes out and takes another step forward. Then another. 

The merchandise is on the recessed shelves, out of packaging. Herc looks down at a piece of stainless steel, curved, just as long as his palm, polished to a high shine. One of the ends is wider and thicker than the other, and it reminds him of -- 

"Are you here today for yourself or someone else?" 

It isn't the woman at the register. Instead, it's a young man, local from the look of him, with the accent that Herc has learned, over a decade of living in Hong Kong, means a middle-class family and a decent private school. Gray suit. Pleasant, helpful smile, as if they're in a department store, discussing watches or suit jackets. 

"Someone else," Herc says, awkwardly. 

"Certainly. If it's for your contractor, you may be interested in our -- " 

...

Herc -- 

...

On the one hand, Herc walks out of the store, nauseated, as soon as the young man turns away.

On the other hand, Herc gets home that night: the yellow square of the hallway light in his dark apartment, the spots of light from the windows of the other wings of the Tower, because Herc has enough money to buy windows, but not enough to buy windows the farthest outside wall, so he sees the windows of his neighbors. He hangs up his jacket. He takes off his shoes. He closes and locks the door behind him. 

He crosses, in the dark, to his bedroom and pulls the box out from under his bed: longer than it is tall. 

After a moment of fumbling in the dark, Herc's hand closes on his old collar. The metal is cold against his hands; the weight is familiar. The only light in the room is from the alarm clock, but Herc doesn't need to see to know that his cuffs are underneath, soft, worn leather with the Jaeger eagle on them. He is hard even before his fingers wrap around the metal. Kneeling by the side of the bed with the collar in one hand, gripping his bad shoulder with the other, he gets off harder than he has since -- 

...

Herc remembers standing in the hallway outside Stacker's study. 

...

Herc remembers a year or so before the end: the hallway, the floor, the walls, the beautiful sky-blue length of silk, shot through with gold, hanging behind a protective glass cover. Late afternoon light coming through the window. Stacker came out, having cleared off his desk. He looks at Herc, touches Herc on the arm. 

"Still all right?"

After a moment, Herc nods. "Yes." 

Stacker goes on considering him, but when Herc straightens his shoulders, he continues on through the hallway, into his bedroom: Herc goes on watching the tall woman inside, taking light readings, adjusting the flash umbrella infinitesimally.

When Stacker comes back into the hallway, Herc has taken off his clothes, folded them, and is kneeling on them by the wall. The blindfold is laid over his right shoulder, waiting for Stacker to put it on him. In the meantime, Herc keeps his eyes closed. 

Vanessa stands in the doorway of the study; she is taking pictures of Herc. 

...

Herc remembers the blindfold, the familiar smell of the desk, being on his stomach and having one arm tied above him to a leg of the desk and the other free because after discussion, Stacker and Vanessa determined it would be more challenging, more expressive, more photographically interesting for Herc to have one hand free while he was caned. Herc remembers the lights the photographer had unpacked -- _fixtures with softboxes_ she called them -- and presumes they are on his back and shoulders. Vanessa's voice was soft and pleasant; Herc is on the desk, and she talks with Stacker about angles and how she expected to shoot the scene. Would it be too intrusive if she stood here, then moved around? 

The desk had been pulled away from the wall. Halfway through the second set, Stacker pulled Herc's head back; through the pain and fear and adrenaline and lust, he heard the _click_ of an old-fashioned camera closer than before. 

"Keep your face turned toward her," Stacker says to Herc, and touches the cane to the back of Herc's left calf to make sure he remembers. 

Herc knows his lips are swollen from being pressed, hard, against the desk. 

...

Afterwards, Stacker asks Herc whether he'd like to come first, or whether he'd like to get Stacker off now. 

"Please, sir," Herc manages, trying not to twist away from the hand gripping his jaw. Stacker takes a firmer grip, and Herc moans because he is in pain, because the welts on his legs burn and sting and itch, because he wants to come, because he wants to take Stacker's dick in his throat in front of the camera and hear the pleased noise Stacker will make together with the sound of the camera, because he wants to push his face against Stacker's thigh and bury every part of himself. 

...

Herc's memory is blurred by pain and fear and adrenaline and lust. 

...

Herc's blurred memory is dominated by the end: the strange, terrible, unstoppable pleasure when Stacker finally coaxes the orgasm out: on his back on the desk with his legs off the edge. He is blindfolded, but no longer tied down. Herc knows someone is crying out loud; it might be him. Stacker puts a hand on his stomach and says, calmly, that if Herc can't hold his legs up, he'll get Herc down from the desk: is a threat or a promise? With a moan, Herc swings them up almost to his chest, knees to his chest. His legs shake. His arms shake. Sweat makes the welts sting; there is a vibrator curled around his dick. Stacker has two fingers inside Herc's ass.

Stacker moves, and Herc realizes the person crying out is him. 

...

Herc has crystal-clear memories of lying on the couch a month later, with his head against Stacker's knee, looking at photographs that Stacker was taking out of a black lined box: the photographer was a friend and sent Stacker a set. Herc had never handled actual photographs developed in a darkroom, rather than printed: the paper was different. They were intentionally black and white. 

More directly: was that really him, kneeling in the hallway, being blindfolded? Was that him stretched against the desk? The walls were familiar. So was the furniture. That was Stacker rolling up his sleeves before picking up the cane temporarily set to the side, every element familiar, but how could that be him, blindfolded, face turned to the camera with Stacker's hand in his hair? The mouth was swollen from biting and being pressed against desk. There were tears running past the edge of the blindfold. Was that him, face-up on the desk with his arms above his head, fingers gripping forearms, half-arched with the orgasm building inside him, so that the presentation hoops caught the light? Stacker's shoulders were bent over the body. 

After the first few photographs, Stacker was hard. He undid his trousers and put Herc on the floor: afterwards, he wiped himself off, wiped Herc's mouth, zipped back up, and looked at the balance with Herc between his knees, handing each one down to Herc after he was done. 

Sunlight in the great room. 

...

Stacker's broad hand against the back of his neck, rubbing in circles. Herc could close his eyes and identify each smell: the couch and the smell of the house and laundry detergent and Stacker's shampoo and Stacker's lotion and the smell of Stacker's skin. Stacker's legs, warm on either side of him. The sound of Stacker's breathing. The sound of Stacker's voice. 

Herc set the photographs aside, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. 

...

At the end of ten years, is Herc still wearing the agency collar? For reasons ranging from _history_ to aesthetics, Stacker never wanted one in the first place. He had Kaori negotiate language into a rider. After six years, he exercises his right to replace the heavy, technology loaded Agency collar with one of his choosing. It's slim, stainless steel, and made by the same jeweler who did the cuffs, who gave it just enough weight to make it pleasant in the hand. Stacker's initials are engraved in the front. 

...

Herc keeps the collar under his bed, in the same box where he keeps his wedding ring from Angela. 

From time to time, because he has gotten used to the way they look, he wears his presentation hoops: most days, he wears silver barbells.


	47. Chapter 47

Ask Stacker Pentecost. In almost every universe, he would be horrified if presented with a description of his actions with respect to Herc in this one. 

How could any version of him own another human being, let alone for these purposes? Was he lacking in empathy? Did this universe have an entirely different history with slavery and colonialism and racism? 

In response, point out the through elements: Luna, his mother. His dead father. Eleven years old in a hard world uninclined to give him a chance due to his skin color and the locale of his birth, even less inclined to give him one after his attempt of vengeance. Remind Stacker that his besetting sin is arrogance: the belief that he, single-handedly, can fix the wrongs of a cruel system. In at least one universe, after all, he acquires a black-market nuclear weapon. Makes a deal with Hannibal Chau. Leads a military coup: after all, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps is a military organization operating under the civilian guidance of the United Nations. Upon defunding, Stacker ignores orders to decommission Hong Kong Shatterdome. 

He thinks, correctly as it turns out, that by doing so, he can save the world. 

...

In most universes, Stacker Pentecost believes that sufficient ends justify any means. Does he believe it in every circumstance, in every universe?


	48. Chapter 48

Two weeks after Herc's contract ends, a person that Stacker doesn't like makes an over-familiar comment about Stacker's boy.

...

Four months after, Duc is back in Hong Kong, and Duc wants to see some horse racing, so they go to Happy Valley. More specifically, Duc wants to get boiled peanuts and sit underneath an artificially simulated sun. He doesn't want to bother with putting on a blazer or social niceties, so after he lays his bets at the general window, they slip into the stands. Duc flags down a vendor. Nobody recognizes either of them. 

After a while: 

"How's Herc?"

"Contract ended." 

Duc digests this information. 

"How long ago?"

"Four months."

"Are you going to replace him?" 

When he doesn't say anything, Duc looks over and sees the expression on Stacker's face. 

"Sorry," Duc says, eyebrows up. "Didn't know you were touchy."

Stacker looks back to the horses being led into their starting gates. 

...

"Hold it."

"Show me." 

Stacker comes back with two fingers of Japanese whisky, deep gold in the tumbler, and good enough that he hasn't put ice in it. 

"Swallow." 

...

Stacker has a memory from eight years into the contract: a recent acquisition near Anchorage Tower where the prior management remained unsatisfied with the terms they had accepted. Things escalated; there were direct and personal threats. It was no longer the time for conciliation, and consequently, Stacker remembers a three week stay in secured quarters, riding the freight elevator down twice a day because it was more easily secured. Every time he went out of guest quarters or the Jaeger field office, he wore an upgraded combat vest: strong enough to turn aside bladed weapons, most small arms fire, and almost anything except for point-blank, full power shot from a plasma rifle. 

Every morning, after putting the vest on Stacker, Herc went over every square inch of the vest with his hands, checking to make sure the seams had sealed properly, going over the wear points for any breakage in the surface that could let in an electroblade. The shape of a combat vest changed once it was put on; sometimes, the fingers found what the eye skipped over. 

On the fourth day, Herc looked up. 

"Here," he said, and Stacker reached down. It felt the same to him: Herc shifted Stacker's hand slightly to the left. 

"There." 

It felt like a crease, nothing more. Was that enough to be an issue? Stacker's hand was still over the spot, and they stood in the master bedroom at the guest quarters; they could hear the Jaeger security detail in the living room, half a dozen bodies in combat suits. Herc was still standing close and looking at him. Quiet. Steady. 

"Right," Stacker said, and started to unbuckle the straps at the sides.

"They probably didn't bring another, so they'll have to send back," Herc said. "You'll be late." 

Stacker knew the edges of his mouth turned down. After a moment, Herc's did, too. Then, Herc took the fingers of his left hand away from the back of Stacker's right. He came around to help him undo the side: three straps, and Stacker looked in the mirror that ran along the side of the room. He was stripped back down to a shirt sleeves. The curtains were drawn in case of snipers. Herc took the vest, two-handed, and carried it back into the living room. 

...

"Your unit do personal security?" 

"Never fancy enough." 

They are in the living room of the guest quarters. The curtains are still drawn, but what is there to see? It's Anchorage in deep winter. The sun comes up after ten, and is gone by four. Jaeger Security is in the next unit; by the door, a woman sits in a combat suit, unpowered, helmet off, but with a plasma rifle over her knees. Stacker is so bored that he is sitting on the carpet with a towel spread out around him, one of his hand-stitched black calfskin oxfords in hands, and Herc's shoe-shine kit in front of him. A room service cart sits to the side, covers off and food eaten. 

"You do it for the person who'll be standing next to you in the riot line," Herc says, after a moment. "If the line goes, your shield goes," Herc adds. "If your shield goes, your suit can crack. And if your suit cracks, the only thing keeping you from being stabbed is the vest." 

Herc looks at him, quiet. Steady. Stacker knows that he is holding the shoe in his hands, and looking back. 

The guard by the door is pretending she can't see or hear them. 

...

Stacker actually meets Vanessa through Kaori. 

She mentions at the end of a work meeting that she has someone he should meet; Stacker gives her a measuring look, and Kaori tells him, laughing, that it isn't a setup. She just thinks they should meet; she promises that he'd like her. In fact, Kaori makes a point of introducing them at her next dinner party, and Stacker admits that even if it never goes beyond friendship, Kaori made the right call. 

They end up at a bar after Kaori chases them out of her living room. 

"You're joking," Stacker says. 

"Swear I'm not," she says back. Then, they're both laughing. It turns out they're both from the same cluster of buildings in the same area in the same Slums on the other side of the world: six thousand miles away, Vanessa a decade younger, but they've ended up sitting next to each other in a room in Hong Kong with a wall covered in gold foil. Stacker can hear the old accent surfacing in his voice because he can hear it in Vanessa's. They talk about things and people and places that Stacker hasn't thought about since he was a homesick boy in a second-tier military boarding school in Tokyo Tower. 

Eventually, talk turns to how they got out of the far Atlantic Slums and made their way to the Rim. Vanessa raises her right hand, index finger up, and circles her throat. 

"Modeling agency wouldn't fly me out until I signed, and got my parents to guarantee it," Vanessa says. "I was fifteen. You?" 

"My sister went on corporate contracts to pay for school. Couldn't get anywhere once I came out -- a lifetime of scraping in little houses on little deals, when Luna had done that for me. So I took one." 

"And now you're a Jaeger's Jaeger, living on the Peak. Kaori says you have a personal contractor." Vanessa says. Her eyes are on his face; there is a slight, complicated expression on her mouth. 

...

After his contract, Stacker became a Jaeger. After hers, Vanessa became a photographer.

She comes to Stacker's house to shoot, trailing an assistant and a stylist and three floating crates that Herc helps unpack. There are floating lights, flash umbrellas, a mobile review stand, a folding table where the assistant lays out a half-dozen cameras and two cases of lenses. Eventually, Stacker comes out from his bedroom, talking to his barber, who made a house call for the occasion: there is also a makeup artist, but Vanessa asks him to hold off. She wants some informal pictures of Stacker without. 

Two weeks later, Vanessa comes back. It's just her. 

... 

After a busy period, Stacker tells Herc he is free to spend the night outside until called back. Herc takes it to mean that he isn't wanted, so he pushes back in exactly the ways that he knows will frighten and anger and upset Stacker the most: specific things that Stacker shared because he trusted Herc. Standing in the foyer with a smile on his mouth, lying on his stomach on the dining table with the paddle in sight, he taunts Stacker. 

Does it excuse what comes after? Of course not. Furthermore, Stacker has taken measures to make sure Herc knew what he was getting into without and what would be asked of him, but words can't bridge the gap. Promises matter less than shock collars. 

The next afternoon, Herc gets out of bed. He takes anti-inflammatories and painkillers. He walks through the quiet house, past the scroll of the crane in flight, past the beautiful sky-blue silk hanging behind glass. He stands at the doorway to Stacker's study, where he stood years before and demanded to know whether he would spend the next ten years kneeling. 

He does not say that again. Instead, he waits. Eventually, Stacker says, quietly, that it shouldn't have happened. Herc says nothing. 

Stacker asks if Herc wants to terminate the contract: he can pay the balance, and they can walk away from each other. Herc goes on looking at him, quiet. Steady. He is still wearing presentation hoops; they're visible under his shirt. Afternoon sun is coming over the Peak and touching him at the shoulders.

"What do you want?" Stacker asks, finally. 

Still in the doorway, Herc says, "Let me stay."

They can both see the effort it takes Herc not to kneel. 

...

Tamsin advises Stacker, bluntly, to end the contract. He is attached. Things never end well when a client gets attached to a contractor. Stacker knows better than anyone what happened when she made the same mistake decades ago. He has years left, and he'll only get more attached to Herc: he'll only make himself more vulnerable. 

Even more importantly, Tamsin says, because she knows that Stacker's honor outweighs his instinct for self-preservation: Stacker will break more promises. 

Duc doesn't understand why, if Stacker misses Herc, he doesn't get another contractor. 

...

Agencies approach Stacker regularly, consistently, figuring a man who was interested once might be tempted again. Years later, in a moment of weakness, he calls an agent back, and when the call from the agent comes back, Stacker wrestles with himself. What harm is there in going to look? So he does, reminding himself at every step that he asked, this time, for professional sex workers, trained and experienced and conditioned.

A receptionist offers him coffee or tea. The agent offers champagne. Stacker rejects all of them, and they go through to the interview rooms. 

"Here we go," the agent says, and touches a button to make the viewing panels transparent, at least from the client end. 

Stacker Pentecost and his well-known taste for rough. Stacker Pentecost spent ten years with a contractor so Slums you could practically smell it on him. Stacker Pentecost likes using his hands and _making a mark_.

...

Three redheads. A local man with long, wiry arms who can't stay down on his knees, and keeps standing up. A brunette down on the end, hair cut as short as Herc's when he first came through. Unlike the others, she was told to kneel with her back to the viewing panel, so that Stacker could see the stars and sun on one shoulder, in the same place that Herc had his. Her right arm was unmarked, so she still had her chip, was still in, but she could be convinced to quit for the right price, so the right scar would be there for delivery. 

When the agent knocks on the glass, she half-turns, and Stacker sees that she's younger than Mako. 

Stacker doesn't keep his anger from showing: the man flinches. Stacker leans forward; the man flinches again. Stacker doesn't look away. 

He walks out. 

...

Six months before the end of Herc's contract, Jaeger security asks Stacker's senior assistant to write them in for a half-hour meeting. Morning? 9:45 to 10:15? That works, but it will be a hard stop at 10:20, with the junior assistant coming in to break things up if necessary, because Pentecost has a 10:20 with a project team in preparation for an 11:00. 

...

"Will there be a renewal?"

"No." 

"Any possibility of that changing?"

Stacker moves his head from side to side, a short, tight motion. Morning sun comes through the windows in his office run from floor-to-ceiling in behind him; in front of his desk are two guest chairs with a low table between them. To the right is an oval conference table with six chairs and a low credenza. Against that wall is a long, low couch, a door to a private bathroom, and a remarkably beautiful piece of classical artwork, showing a part of a willow tree against a gold background. 

She leans back in the chair. "File says that he's reasonably intelligent, has a security background. Ten years in your house, knowing your schedule. Would you consider a wipe?" 

Stacker looks at her. "What would it involve?"

"Usually the equivalent of a half-dozen four hour sessions over a week, but we can compress it if you want more of those last few days. Given how long you've had the contractor, the sensitivity of what he's probably heard, I'd prefer to do it in-house without getting the Agency involved, at least on the front end. In that case, you'd only responsible for the draw fees on the long-term damage bond." 

"I meant -- what would you be wiping?" 

She considers. "Depends. How much do you want him to remember?" 

...

She realizes that she has been taking the wrong line. Being good at her job, she shifts. 

"Listen, we don't have to do a full wipe, Stacker," she says. "We can't target specific memories yet, but we could take a conditioning route -- make it difficult for your contractor to recall details about security operations, or reluctant to talk about you. Even when the intent to disclose isn't there, ex-contractors talk. It can make them a target." 

They've worked together on other projects. They're in middle of another one now: Stacker Pentecost is no longer a man who deals with subordinates, and the woman sitting across from him is the head of Jaeger Security. In fact, they have known each other for the better part of twenty years, and while they aren't friends, they aren't enemies. She has a healthy respect for him. By and large, he appreciates her expertise. 

After another moment, they move on. Most of the meeting is actually about something else. 

...

Typically, on the aircar going from the office to home, Stacker works: reads, marks up memos and briefings and proposals, makes notes for meetings. That night, halfway through a summary of next quarter positioning, he switches over to a form that he had been sent a week before. 

Stacker unchecks the default box, checks another and looks down at the screen. Herc will be offered, the opportunity, at the end of his contract, to have a full or partial memory wipe as part of his end-of-contract transition package from the agency. He will be allowed to choose; Stacker turns to other work before he can be tempted to select the box saying that he wants to know what Herc chooses. 

...

Nevertheless, years later, Stacker visits Vanessa at home in Kowloon Tower. There are no windows in her converted warehouse space, but she mounted sunlight lamps behind panels to produce the effect of natural light. Hermann is in the kitchen, putting a meal together. He nods to Stacker. Stacker nods back to him, then continues with Vanessa through to her office in the back. 

"Here," she says, handing Stacker a loupe, so that he can look at the negatives on the lightbox. "These are the ones I was thinking about for the show." 

Stacker bends down to the first negative, and the image springs out: him, standing in front of the large windows in the great room at home. His hands are in his trouser pockets; mist fills the window behind him. 

"All right," he says, and goes to the second. 

It's him and Duc standing at the conference table, talking in front of the Hasegawa in Stacker's office. Again, black and white, so the beautiful gold background is a sheet of light reflected onto his face, onto Duc's face. To the side, Tamsin sits in one of Stacker's guest chairs, dressed all in white, looking impossibly thin and regal, with her head turned, so that she looks directly into the camera. 

"Fine. Though you made Duc look taller than he actually is."

Vanessa laughs. "I think that's why he liked it so much. Once you're done, I'll talk to Tamsin." 

The last one -- 

"I won't put that one up for sale, if you don't want someone buying it."

"Make sure Herc's all right with it," Stacker says. "My assistant can give you a release form, so that the agency will give you contact information. Or you can ask Mako. She keeps in touch."

"But not you?" 

Stacker stops. 

"I should never have taken a contractor," Stacker says, quietly: he has never said these words out loud to another human being. "You should never have had to sign a contract. I should never had to sign one. Luna should never have had to sign one." 

He hands the loupe back to Vanessa. 

...

Years later, Stacker is in a Jaeger laboratory. The room itself is dark; the lights are off, because all the engineers are on the other side of the observation window, in a brightly lit work bay. Two of them are feverishly working on the prototype; three are hovering anxiously over the engineer re-writing code on the fly. Having him there was only made the engineers more nervous, so Stacker left Hu in charge of keeping the engineers and their manager from going to pieces and wasting more of his time, then absented himself until it was time to come back. Jin is outside dealing with an issue that has come up outside Manila. 

Stacker looks down at the desk in front of him: a mess of dirty coffee mugs, yellow tabs with notes written on them, and even a handful old-fashioned printed documents. Gingerly, he takes the one at the top of the pile. It's from the _Journal of Applied Robotics_ and is titled _Integrated perception modeling through mixed-integer libraries_. This particular copy has been read and re-read and marked and annotated used as a reference document. 

Three names are listed at the top. The first author is Charles M. Hansen, who was, at the time of publication, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles Tower.


	49. Chapter 49

Ask Herc Hansen, particularly in the days immediately after Pitfall. 

His son gets an education. His son falls in love. In fact, Chuck marries and has a kid: the marriage falls apart after a few years, but Chuck and his ex-wife stay on decent terms. Chuck gets to see his daughter grow up. He sees more of life than the cockpit of a Jaeger. He learns emotions besides anger and fear and contempt. 

He does not die at the bottom of the ocean, aged twenty-four.


	50. Chapter 50

"Hold it."

"Show me." 

Stacker comes back with two fingers of Japanese whisky, gold-colored in the tumbler, and good enough that he hasn't put ice in it. 

He studies the blue eyes turned up to him, and touches the wet spit running from the corners of Herc's mouth. In the corners of Herc's eyes are half-dried tears, from the caning: heavy enough so that Stacker had to remind him to stay down, and when Herc could not, Stacker tied him down, then laid the tip of the cane against the back of Herc's thigh, and heard the whimper of fear and lust and desire mixed together. 

Stacker started the count over again at one. 

...

"Swallow."


	51. Chapter 51

Years later, Herc is in a department store, buying some new undershirts, and comes out to a different world. 

People gather into clusters. There is a strange hush on the streets, a quarter shock, a quarter sadness, and half nervous, edgy fear. Every vidscreen is running a black banner saying that Tamsin Sevier is dead: what will happen? Will the Kaiju take the opportunity to push against the Jaegers? Will there be fighting among the Jaegers to replace her? 

Two nights later, Mako calls. It's audio-only, but her voice sounds rough, strained from continuous talking. Even though he knows she can't see him, Herc pulls a little closer to the comm unit in sympathy. He asks her how she's going. Mako replies, all right, everything considering. She came back to Hong Kong for the funeral rites. 

Mako sounds tired. 

...

In accordance with Sevier tradition, there is a church service. 

In accordance with Jaeger tradition, her body is cremated. In accordance with the city where she was born and lived virtually her entire life before dying, there is an extended memorial at a funeral home, where friends and family and business associates and key Jaeger allies assemble to pay their respects. Then, there will be a private procession to the mountain for the very closest family and friends and the most important guests, followed by a ritualized vegetarian banquet at a restaurant. 

In accordance with the provisions that Tamsin made before her death, backed by the sharp-edged, iron-clad instructions in the will filed by her solicitor, but only possible because of twenty years of grinding work and unrelenting discipline by Stacker -- he and Mako are at the heart of every event. At the church service, Stacker gives the eulogy. At the cremation, the attendant delivers the sky-blue urn into Mako's hands. At the memorial, the urn is displayed at the front of the hall, on a table draped with the Jaeger flag, next to a silver-framed photograph of Tamsin taken by Vanessa a few years before. Stacker and Mako stand at the head of the receiving line. 

So: the mourners say to each other, while lined up to pay their respects. 

So: the mourners murmur, counting the funeral wreaths sent by trading houses allied or affiliated or desirous of allying or affiliating with the Jaegers, comparing them for size and expense and position within the hall.

So: the mourners consider, as they light the one or three or five sticks of incense to which they are entitled in accordance with their closeness and depth of mourning for Tamsin Sevier. 

The old woman got her way. Stacker Pentecost not only survived her death, but crushed all opposition before him to become the next Marshal. There will be no war with the Kaiju until the Jaegers are ready, but when it comes, it will be savage. Will the Kaiju try to strike pre-emptively in an attempt to catch the Jaegers early? Will they sue for peace at Seattle Tower? There will be policy changes; Pentecost will clean house. 

Pentecost has opinions on having personal contractors, even though he had one himself: the funeral is for Tamsin Sevier, but it is noted who brought their personal contractors, and who seeks favor. There are, in fact, rumors circulating that Pentecost had been one himself, years ago. 

So: consider that. 

...

The Sevier uncles keep their place and do what they're told. The aunt is nowhere to be seen, having retired from the field of battle at least temporarily, while the cousins elbow and squabble disgracefully, even in the memorial hall. 

And there is Stacker Pentecost, receiving condolences from heads of state, standing with the daughter that Tamsin all but adopted outright in her will. 

"Herc," Mako says, in the crowd afterwards, pushing through to make it to him. She gives him a hug. "I didn't see you in the receiving line." 

Instead of directly answering with words, he hugs her a little tighter, then lets go, except that in the press of bodies, there isn't quite room for him to step back. His right hand stays on her left shoulder -- Mako's bodyguards are close by, too. One keeps her eyes on Mako and Herc; the other watches the crowd. 

"I went at the end," Herc says. "It was just Tamsin's uncles by then." 

"Do you want to come up the mountain with us?" 

Herc hesitates, and Mako realizes that she has lost his attention. Even before she turns, though, she guesses why. The crowd has cleared a little, just enough so that Stacker is visible thirty, forty feet away. A cluster of people are trying to talk to him, but Stacker is looking at Herc. Herc is looking back at him: tracking him from across the room, after all these years. 

Mako sees the expression on Stacker's face. She sees the expression on Herc's, feels the way his right hand tightens briefly on her left shoulder. 

Then, the crowd shifts and closes. Stacker can't be seen anymore, and someone is calling Mako's name. 

"I better not," Herc says, softly. He lets go of her shoulder, and Mako closes her eyes. For a moment, she is sharply conscious of the ways that she has been lucky: when she opens her eyes again, Herc is gone. 

Her media handler has two press organizations lined up, waiting to speak to her.


	52. Chapter 52

This is a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> [Archive of email update list with authorial blather on a number of chapters, ](http://tinyletter.com/thisisahappyending/) along with the occasional deleted scene. Also, [#aesthetic](http://pacificrimeverywhere.tumblr.com/tagged/this+is+a+happy+ending/).
> 
> Thanks to [mayqueen517](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mayqueen517) for beta-reading and encouragement, as well as [Ponderosa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa) who is wonderful and supportive and created art that made my brain dribble out of my ear with HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT HELP ([NSFW image](http://ponderosa121.tumblr.com/post/77011577255/rhod-bribed-me-with-a-chapter-of-her-dystopic-sex)). [Sid](http://sterlerds.tumblr.com/) puts up with me screaming at them a lot about this. A very special hat-tip goes to [catpella](http://catpella.tumblr.com/), who provided top-notch kink-spotting and beta-ing on 37, and [takiki16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takiki16/pseuds/takiki16) for characterization assistance and line editing and dialogue tweaking and general thoughtful awesomeness on 37, 38, and 39. And [Belle86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle86/pseuds/Belle86), who gives the best feedback by text ever.
> 
> And general, all-around gratefulness to [analogized](http://archiveofourown.org/users/analogized) for coming up with the initial idea ("Herc Hansen is a sex worker, and Stacker Pentecost is a client"), and then not running away screaming when I took that innocuous, simple, could-be-written-as-completely-safe-and-consensual-and-non-abusive, hey-let's-talk-about-how-sex-work-isn't-inherently-degrading-or-awful scenario and you know.
> 
> Turned it into a ridiculous dystopia abusive non-consensual AU futurefic with troubling racial implications. 
> 
> analogized also came up with all the good ideas in this and contributed razor-sharp editing on all fronts. If the character dialogue sounds even vaguely in character, it's because of her brilliant editing.


End file.
